
LI BLURT OF CONGRESS 

UNITED STATES OF AMEKIC 




"V«. 



Me 



■ 



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'.*■ 




■ 



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A 

GARDEN OF SPICES: 

EXTRACTS FROM THE 

jjettgious letters of |jeu. Jjamufl |[tttkrfarJ, 



REV. LEWIS R. DUNN: 



HISTORICAL AXD BIOGRAPHICAL ESS A K 



REV. A. C. GEORGE, D. D., 



An Introduction by Rev. T. L. Cnyler, D. D. 







CINCINNATI: HITCHCOCK & WALDEN. 

NEW YORK: CARLTON & LANAHAN. 

1869 



OF C9NORB**] 
WASHINGTON] 



-f£ 



Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1S6S, by 

HITCHCOCK & WALDEN, 



In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the Southern 
District of Ohio. 



||uMishsrs' Mxrtics* 




SINGULAR coincidence attended the pro- 
duction of this valuable volume. The 
names of Rev. L. R. Dunn, of Jersey 
City, New Jersey, and Rev. A. C. George, of St. 
Louis, Missouri, are found on the title-page. The 
minds of these two ministers were simultaneously 
drawn to the precious Letters of Rutherford, and 
both were impressed with the idea of the value of a 
volume of extracts of the holy and devout sayings 
of this remarkable man. Both, one in the far East 
and one in the far West, spent most of the Winter 
of 1867-68 in selecting and arranging extracts for 
a volume. In the Spring of 1868 Mr. Dunn sub- 
mitted his arrangement to the Book Concern in New 
York, and Dr. GEORGE submitted his collections to 
the Book Concern in Cincinnati. The editors of 



4 Publishers" Notice. 

books in the two departments soon passed upon the 
volumes submitted to them, and recommended them 
for publication. Just before commencing the work 
of publishing them it was discovered that each 
Concern was about to issue nearly the same book. 
Notice was given to the two compilers, and they 
met with their manuscripts in Chicago, and, on 
comparison, it was found, strangely enough, that 
the extracts and arrangement of the two compilers 
were almost identical. It was amicably agreed 
that the selection of extracts made by Mr. Dunn 
should be the basis of publication, and the intro- 
duction to the work which had been procured 
from Dr. Cuyler should be retained, and the ex- 
cellent biographical essay of Dr. George should 
precede the work. In this form the book is now 
published. We trust that the fact of these two 
minds being drawn to the same work is indicative 
of a want for it, and of the welcome the public 
will give it, while the fact that the extracts made 
by two different persons were nearly the same, is 
evidence that the selection is the best that could 
be made from The Letters of Rutherford. 



able af Cm^tBtxts. 



PAGE. 

INTRODUCTION, 7 

HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL ESSAY, ... 13 



SECTION I. 

Christ, 35 

SECTION II. 
The Cross and the Crown, 57 

SECTION III. 
Suffering for Christ, 79 

SECTION IV. 
Tm: World and Christ 90 

SECTION V. 
I Tow to Seek Christ, 101 

SECTION VI. 
Tin Higher Life, 108 



6 Table of Contents. 




SECTION VII. 
Rutherford's Rules for Holy Living, 


PAGE. 
139 


SECTION VIII. 




The Uses of Affliction, 


146 


SECTION IX. 




Faith and Assurance, 


l6l 


SECTION X. 




The Minister's Joys and Sorrows, .... 


168 


SECTION XI. 




The Riches of Free Grace, 


174 


SECTION XII. 




Our Departed Children — Not Lost, but Gone Before, 


197 


SECTION XIII. 




The Saints Exhorted to Diligence, .... 




SECTION XIV. 




Warnings and Entreaties, 


238 


SECTION XV. 




The Heavenly Vision 


264 



trtratluctkm* 



BY THEODORE L. CUYLER, D. D. 




.;.\1^/ N the Southern coast of Scotland — almost 
a&% in sight from the decks of the Cunard 
steamers as they pass into Liverpool — lies 
the parish of Anworth. In this ancient parish 
there was standing not many years since — and per- 
haps is standing to this hour — an ancient and rustic 
church. The swallows, during many a Summer, 
built their nests in the crannies of its roof; the 
crumbling walls were garnitured with moss, and 
festooned with creeping vines. In the new College 
of Edinburgh its rusty key still hangs, as a precious 
relic of the era of the "Solemn League and Cove 
nant." The old oaken pulpit is still preserved. 
And well it may be ; for in that pulpit once stood 
a man of whom it used to be said that he was 



S JXTRODUCTION. 

always praying, always preaching, always visiting 
the sick, always catechising, and always studying 
the Word of God. He it was who uttered that 
memorable saying to his beloved people : " My wit- 
ness is above that your heaven would be two 
heavens to me, and the salvation of you all as 
two salvations unto me." That was the pulpit of 
Samuel Rutherford — glory of all devout Scotch- 
men. The Savory Bible-Saturated discourses, once 
preached in that hallowed place to weeping and 
melted auditors, have, for the most part, perished 
long ago. But still that pastor is remembered, and 
will be while there are loving Christian hearts on 
earth. His world-known "Letters" will be Ruther- 
ford's enduring memorial. More than two centuries 
ago they were written — in the dark troublous days 
of obstinate King Charles the First — yet the smell 
of the myrrh and the cassia has never departed 
from this Garden of Spices. The delicious aroma 
of devotion breathes from every line. Without any 
special interest as descriptive or historical letters — 
devoid of all literary ambitions and all theological 
dissertations — they live, and will ever live, from the 
perennial Christliness that pervades them. They 
are the artless love-letters of a holy heart on fire 
with the love of Jesus. The sainted M'Cheyne 



INTR OD UCTION. Q 

was wont to make his Rutherford a companion for | 
the closet. Cecil styled it "one of my classics." 
Richard Baxter said : " Hold off the Bible, and such 
a hook the world never saw." This sounds extrava- 
gant to those who have never gone into this Gar- 
den of Spices for themselves, and plucked the 
purple clusters from laden trellises, and inhaled 
the heavenly perfumes that linger on the air. 

The copy of Rutherford's Letters which stands 
on our bookcase — an excellent reprint by the Car- 
ters — is too thoroughly pencil-marked for any one 
else's ownership. It is hard to keep your pencil 
from making note of such a passage as this: "Wel- 
come, welcome Jesus, in what way soever thou 
comest, if we can but get a sight of thee. And 
sure I am that it is better to be sick, providing that 
Christ come to the bedside, and draw aside the cur- 
tains and say, Courage, I am thy salvation, than to 
enjoy lusty health, and never to be visited by God."/ 
Or such a terse, epigrammatic sentence as the fol- 
lowing : " His loved ones are most tried ; the lintel- 
stones and pillars of his new Jerusalem suffer 
more knocks of God's hammer than the common 
side-wall stones." Sometimes his soul is rapt into 
a sort of delirium of heavenly love, as when, in 
writing to Lady Kenmure, he says : " Honorable 



io Introduction. 

Lady, keep your first love — hold the first match 
with that soul-delighting Bridegroom, our sweet, 
sweet Jesus, the Rose of Sharon, and the sweetest- 
smelled rose in all his Father's garden. I would 
not exchange one smile of his lovely face for king- 
doms. Let others take their silly feckless heaven 
in this life. Put up your heart. Shout for joy. 
Your King is coming to fetch you to his Father's 
house." In writing of the indestructibility of the 
Church, he says : " That bush has been burning 
these four thousand years, but no man has yet seen 
the ashes of that fire." 

For that Church he underwent sore and harass- 
ing persecutions. He was confined for two years 
at Aberdeen, but "found Jesus sweet to him in that 
place." He used to date his letters "from Christ's 
palace in Aberdeen ;" and the very stones in the 
walls of his dreary apartment "glittered in his eyes 
like rubies." On his way from home thither he 
spent a night with Dickson, the author of the in- 
comparable hymn, 

" O ! mother dear, Jerusalem." 

They had a night like that which Great Hear-t and 
Old Honest spent with the hospitable Gaius in Bun- 
yan's allegory ; for they were both pilgrims, halting 



INTR OD UCTION. 1 1 

for a few hours on their march to the Celestial 
City. 

As soon as the confinement at Aberdeen ended 
Rutherford hastened back to his hungry flock of 
shepherds and fishermen in the parish of Anworth. \\\\ 
From thence he was called to a Professor's chair at 
St. Andrews, but was soon deposed by the Govern- 
ment, and his works were burned in Edinburgh by 
the hands of the common hangman. He was also 
summoned before Parliament on a false charge of 
treason. But the summons came too late. He was 
on his dying bed, and calmly remarked that he had 
got another summons before a Superior Judge, and 
sent this message: "I behoove to answer my first 
summons ; and, ere your day, I will be where too 
few kings and great folk ever come." 

On his dying bed he cried out : " O ! for arms to 
embrace him! O! for a well-tuned harp!" Like 
some other departing saints, he seemed to have a 
premonition of the very time when he should pass 
over the unbridged river ; and on the last afternoon 
of his life he said : " This night will close the door, 
and fasten my anchor within the vail ; and I shall 
go away in a sleep by five o'clock in the morning. 
There is nothing now between me and the resur- 
rection; but, 'This day thou shalt be with me in 



1 2 INTR OD UCTIOA 7 . 

Paradise.' " As the enrapturing visions of the open 
gate broke upon his failing eyes, he exclaimed, 
" Glory, glory dwelleth in Immanucl 's Land 7" With 
this shout of triumph on his lips he passed through 
the gate into the city. 

When the news reached Parliament that he was 
dying, it was voted that he should not die in the 
College as a Professor. Lord Burleigh arose and 
said, " You can not vote him out of heaven." Nor 
could they vote him out of the hearts of tens of 
thousands who have found in that orchard of spirit- 
ual delights which his fervid piety planted for them, 
some of the sweetest satisfactions their souls shall 
feed on this side of the New Jerusalem. 

The nearer we come to our home the nearer 
some books grow to us. And upon that shelf of 
our inner sanctum, on which we lay our Pilgrim's 
Progress, the Saint's Rest, and Thomas a Kempis, 
we should have a place, too, for Samuel Ruther- 
ford's Letters. 



I^fstovkal im& §§z®%mf\ud ^sssg. 



BY A. C. GEORGE, D. D. 




HE most difficult works to write," says 
Bishop Edward Thomson, "are those on 
practical religion. They seem the easiest. 
The soul full of Christian feeling is apt to say, 
'That which is in me as a well of living water 
must refresh other thirsty souls.' But when they 
draw it forth and present it to the public it has lost 
the vivacity of the fountain, and is warm, tasteless, 
sickening. Next to novels, the press pours forth 
no stream of equal fullness with that of religious 
literature. And next to novels, we must say, no 
streams dry up so soon. 'What time they wax 
warm they vanish ; when it is hot they are con- 
sumed out of their place.' 

"Unlike fiction, however, they are not injurious 



14 Historical and Biographical Essay. 

in their brief day. They refresh some thirsty trav- 
elers in their course. But they are chiefly like the 
speeches of social meetings or most sermons, very 
comforting to the pious listeners, but forgotten 
almost as soon as last week's meals. Evermore 
must this bread be given. 

"The great religious works in which deepest 
piety, keenest thought, and richest imagination 
form an indissoluble and almost divine unity are 
the rarest of human productions. God seems to 
confer this gift most sparingly, as if he would com- 
pel the human soul to his own Book. When con- 
ferred, it ever dwells in the full splendors of that 
Book, like Mercury in the blaze of the sun, and 
seems to be, as it really is, 'Bright effluence of 
bright essence increate.' Of these few Jeremy 
Taylor's Holy Dying, Pilgrim's Progress, Religio 
Medici, Christian Morals of Sir Thomas Browne, 
Pascal's Thoughts, Augustine's Confessions, Her- 
bert's Poems, and Rutherford's Letters are not only 
specimens, but nearly the whole repertorium." 

Rutherford's Letters ought to be more generally 
known and more highly appreciated by the relig- 
ious world. But many of them are obsolete in 
manner and matter; taken together, they form a 
volume of wearisome bulk, and they contain many 



Historical and Biographical Essay. 15 

things which are no longer of interest to the gen- 
eral reader. We have collated in this volume some 
of his most precious sayings, arranged under appro- 
priate heads. For meditation in the closet, for the 
garniture of sermons, and for the joy of devout 
souls they are unsurpassed. In this brief historical 
and biographical essay it is our aim to put the 
reader of these extracts en rapport with the life 
and times of this saintly man, and thus enable 
him to appreciate, as he could not otherwise, the 
strength, beauty, and excellence of this marvelous 
experience of the love of Christ. 

Samuel Rutherford was born in the year 1600, 
in Nisbet, a village of Roxburghshire, close to the 
Teviot, in the parish of Crailing, in Scotland. He 
appears to have had some opportunities for early 
instruction, and in 1621, just as he came to man- 
hood, he obtained the degree of Master of Arts 
from the University of Edinburgh. We do not 
know at what period he was led by the Holy Spirit 
into the kingdom of Christ, but we often hear him 
complaining of a misspent youth. '"Like a fool 
as I was," is his earnest exclamation, " I suffered 
my sun to be high in the heaven and near after- 
noon before ever I took the gate by the end." In 
1627 he was settled, as minister of the parish, in 



\6 Historical and Biographical Essay. 

Anworth, and from that time forward, by voice and 
pen, by labors and sufferings, he contributed might- 
ily to Scotland's covenanted work of reformation. 
His "Letters" have long been regarded as a relig- 
ious classic, and thousands have feasted on them as 
on the manna of God. They were written, at inter- 
vals, during a period extending from 1628 to 1661, 
a most eventful period in the history of Christian 
civilization. The reign of Charles the First, the 
attempt to obtrude Episcopacy upon Scotland, the 
solemn League and Covenant, civil war in Scotland 
and England, the triumph of the Parliament, the 
establishment of the English commonwealth, the 
execution of the monarch, the protectorate of Oli- 
ver Cromwell, his death and the restoration of the 
royal house, with a general reaction from Presby- 
terianism to Episcopacy — such were some of the 
significant occurrences of those pregnant years. It 
was a period of earnest thought, violent conten- 
tions, frequent persecutions for opinion's sake, and 
wasting factions in Church and State. Penal laws 
were enacted against Catholics, and their enforce- 
ment rigidly demanded. It was a time fertile in 
religious disputes, and the followers of Calvin and 
the followers of Arminius were greatly incensed 
against each other. The former were accused of 



Historical and Biographical Essay. 17 

fatalism and the latter of Pelagianism, and neither 
party could conceive how the other could possibly 
belong to the kingdom of grace or hope for the 
realm of glory. The liturgy and worship of the 
English Episcopal Church certainly bore some re- 
semblance to the Romish superstition which the 
body of the nation, and the Puritans in particular, 
held in the greatest detestation. Many wise and 
excellent men dreaded the surplice and the priestly 
vestments as they shuddered at sin and shrunk 
from the prospect of eternal ruin. 

" The same horror against Popery," says the his- 
torian Hume, "with which the English Puritans 
were possessed was observed among the populace 
in Scotland, inflamed into a higher degree of feroc- 
ity; a panic fear of Popery was easily raised, and 
every new ceremony or ornament introduced into 
divine service was part of that great mystery of 
iniquity which, from the encouragement of the king 
and the bishops, was to overspread the nation. 

"The liturgy which the king, from his own au- 
thority, imposed on Scotland was copied from that 
of England ; but, lest a servile imitation might 
shock the pride of his ancient kingdom, a few alter- 
ations, in order to save appearances, were made 
in it, and in that shape it was transmitted to the 



iS Historical and Biographical Essay. 

bishops at Edinburgh. But the Scots had univer- 
sally entertained a notion that, though riches and 
worldly glory had been shared out to them with a 
sparing hand, they could boast of spiritual treasures 
more abundant and more genuine than were en- 
joyed by any nation under heaven. Even their 
Southern neighbors, they thought, though sepa- 
rated from Rome, still retained a great tincture of 
the primitive pollution, and their liturgy was repre- 
sented as a species of mass, though with some less 
show and embroidery. Great prejudices, therefore, 
were entertained against it, even considered in 
itself; much more when regarded as a preparative 
which was soon to introduce into Scotland all the 
abominations of Popery. And, as the very few 
alterations which distinguished the new liturgy 
from the English seemed to approach nearer to 
the doctrine of the real presence, this circumstance 
was deemed an undoubted confirmation of every 
suspicion with which the people were possessed." 
The result was the formation of the celebrated 
"Covenant," which was signed by all classes, with- 
out distinction of rank or condition. It consisted 
of a solemn renunciation of Popery, and of a bond 
of union by which the subscribers engaged to re- 
sist all religious innovations, to defend each other 



Historical and Biographical Essay. 19 

against all opposition whatsoever, and to seek, in 
all things, the glory of God and the honor and 
advantage of their king and country. None but 
rebels and traitors, it was thought, would withdraw 
themselves from so salutary and so pious a com- 
bination. 

The doctrine also prevailed in Scotland that the 
ecclesiastical authority was totally independent of 
the civil, and that no act of Parliament, nothing 
but the consent of the Church itself, could justify- 
any change in religious worship or discipline. " The 
independency of the ecclesiastical upon the civil 
power," says a historian, "was the old Presbyterian 
principle which had been zealously adopted at the 
Reformation, and which, though James and Charles 
had obliged the Church publicly to disclaim it, had 
been secretly adhered to by all ranks of people. 
It was commonly asked whether Christ or the king 
were superior, and, as the answer seemed obvious, 
it was inferred that the assembly, being Christ's 
council, was superior, in all spiritual matters, to 
the Parliament, which was only the king's." 

The genius of this religion was, unquestionably, 
to exalt the individual because of the sacredness 
of his Christian character, his accountability to 
God, and the heavenly grace and testimony which 



20 Historical and Biographical Essay. 

he received ; and so the Kirk became the home, 
despite inconsistency and the spirit of persecution, 
of freedom of conscience and religious liberty. And 
from these grew up the noblest forms of our Chris- 
tian civilization. 

It is true that toleration of religious differences 
was not practiced ; this great lesson of love the 
whole Christian world still had to learn. The 
Covenanters were not alone in requiring, as a 
condition of toleration, the acceptance of certain 
doctrines and compliance with certain forms of re- 
ligious worship. 

"To have forced Prelacy upon Scotland," says 
Froude, "would have been to destroy the life out 
of Scotland. Thrust upon them by force, it would 
have been no more endurable than Popery. They 
would as soon, perhaps sooner, have had what the 
Irish call 'the rale thing' back again. The polit- 
ical freedom of the country was soon wrapped up 
in the Kirk ; and the Stuarts were perfectly well 
aware of that, and for that very reason began their 
crusade against it. And now suppose the Kirk had 
been the broad, liberal, philosophical thing which 
some people think it ought to have been, how would 
it have fared in that crusade ; how, altogether, would 
it have encountered those surplices of Archbishop 



Historical and Biographical Essay. 21 

Laud or those dragoons of Claverhouse ? It is hard 
to lose one's life for a 'perhaps;' and philosophical 
belief, at the bottom, means a 'perhaps,' and noth- 
ing more. For more than half the seventeenth 
century the battle had to be fought out in Scotland 
which, in reality, was the battle between liberty and 
despotism ; and where, except in an intense, burn- 
ing conviction that they were maintaining God's 
cause against the devil, could the poor Scotch peo- 
ple have found the strength for the unequal strug- 
gle which was forced upon them? Toleration is a 
good thing in its place, but you can not tolerate 
what will not tolerate you and is trying to cut your 
throat. Enlightenment you can not have enough 
of, but it must be true enlightenment, which sees a 
thing in all its bearings. In these matters the vital 
questions are not always those which appear on the 
surface, and in the passion and resolution of brave 
and noble men there is often an inarticulate in- 
telligence deeper than what can be expressed in 
words. Action will sometimes hit the mark when 
the spoken word either misses it or is but half the 
truth." 

The Covenanters fought their battle in the name 
of God, and achieved a victory ; the spirit of toler- 
ation, a more philosophic Christian unity, a great 



22 Historical and Biographical Essay. 

increase of material resources, a larger liberty of 
thought and action, and many other blessed results 
of human progress, came later, but came certainly, 
as the fruit of these early triumphs. 

In the midst of such scenes passed the life and 
labors of Samuel Rutherford. He was a Cal- 
vinist, a Presbyterian, a Covenanter, and, withal, a 
right royal follower of King Jesus. He commenced 
his parish work in Anworth "without," as he says, 
"giving any engagement to the Bishop." In 1636 
he published his celebrated work against Arminian- 
ism, entitled, " Exercitationcs de Gratia! 1 He was 
called before the High Commission Court, July 27, 
1636, because of non-conformity to the acts of Epis- 
copacy, and also, it is said, because of his work 
against the Arminians. The Court deprived him 
of his ministerial office, which he had now' exer- 
cised for nine years in Anworth, and banished him 
to Aberdeen. He was not in prison, but in exile, V 
having the liberty of the town, and many of his 
most charming letters were written from " Christ's 
Palace in Aberdeen." Presbytery being fully re- 
stored by the Glasgow Assembly of 1638, Ruther- 
ford was constrained, through the loving advice of 
his brethren, to accept, the following year, the Pro- 
fessor's Chair in St. Andrews. In July, 1643, ^ e 



Historical and Biographical Essay. 23 

was one of the commissioners from Scotland to the ! 
Westminster Assembly. It is said that there yet 
remains, in the library of the Edinburgh University, 
a sketch of the Shorter Catechism as it came from | 
his hand. While resident in London he wrote and 
published a number of his controversial works. / 
Returning home to St. Andrews, he resumed his 
labors, both in the College and in the pulpit, with 
all his former zeal. 

In 1660, his published work, "Lex Rex," was 
taken notice of by the Government ; for, reasonable 
as it is in defense of the liberty of subjects, its 
spirit of freedom was intolerable to rulers who were 
gradually advancing to acts of cruelty and death. 
Indeed, it was so hateful to them that they burnt it, 
first at Edinburgh by the hands of the hangman ; 
and then, some days after, by the hands of the 
infamous Sharpe, under the windows of its author's 
College in St. Andrews. He was next deposed 
from all his offices ; and, last of all, summoned to 
answer at next Parliament on a charge of high 
treason. But the summons was too late. He was 
already on his death-bed, and, on hearing of the 
summons, calmly remarked, that he had got another 
summons before a superior Judge and Judicatory, 
and sent the message : " I behoove to answer my first 



24 Historical and Biographical Essa y. 

summons ; and, ere your day arrive, I will be where 
few kings and great folks come" 

The following epitaph is on his tombstone, in 
the church-yard of the Chapel of St. Regulus : 

1 " What tongue, what pen, or skill of men, 
Can famous Rutherford commend ! 
His learning justly raised his fame, 
True greatness did adorn his name. 
He did converse with things above, 
Acquainted zvith ImmanueVs /ozv." 

The elaborate works of Rutherford, which he 
designed for public edification, are no longer in 
print, and are willingly forgotten ; but his religious 
"Letters," designed only for private use, are as 
honey and the honeycomb, and are, in doctrine 
and experience, as well adapted now as when first 
written to minister consolation to pious souls. 
There are between three and four hundred of these 
" Letters ;" many of them have become obsolete, 
or refer to matters of no present interest to the 
Church ; and the extracts given in this volume will 
thoroughly impress the reader with the genius and 
spirit of Rutherford. No alteration has been made 
in the text, except by rendering some obscure 
Scotch phrases into comprehensible English. The 
quaintness of the original has been preserved, 



Historical and Biographical Essa y. 25 

except where ambiguity or indelicacy of expression 
demanded a change. 

This book is a companion for the closet, and the 
more it is read, and the more thoroughly the reader 
imbibes its spirit, the more certainly will it be a 
feast of fat things to his soul. The ripest experi- 
ences of a thoroughly devout nature are here pre- 
sented, and though some forms of expression may 
seem objectionable, none can doubt the sincerity, 
fervency, earnestness, and purity of the saintly, de- 
voted, and eloquent author. 

Rutherford was purged from earthly dross in the 
furnace of severe afflictions. His first wife died 
after many months of wearisome illness, during 
which she was "sore tormented night and day." 
The lambs of his household flock were also gathered 
to the bosom of the Chief Shepherd. He was pros- 
trated by a severe fever, which held him for weeks 
at death's door. He was deposed from his ministry 
and banished from his flock by a persecuting hier- 
archy ; and, what was still more painful to endure, 
he was visited, at a critical juncture in his ministry, 
with the reproaches of his brethren. He exclaims 
pathetically, " It is hard when saints rejoice in the 
sufferings of saints, and redeemed ones hurt, and go 
nigh to hate redeemed ones ;" and he adds heavily : 



26 Historical and Biographical Essay. 

"A doubt it is if we shall have fully one heart till 
we shall enjoy one heaven." 

His ministerial faithfulness was proverbial. "He 
has time to visit," says Bonar, in a biographical 
sketch of him — a sketch to which we are largely in- 
debted for facts and suggestions herein contained — 
"for he rises at three in the morning, and then 
meets his God in prayer and meditation, and has 
space for study besides. He takes some days for 
catechising. He never fails to be found at the sick- 
beds of his people. Men said of him : ' He is 
always praying, always preaching, always visiting 
the sick, always catechising, always writing and 
studying.' He was known to fall asleep at night 
speaking of Christ, and even to speak of him during 
his sleep. Indeed, himself speaks of his dreams 
being of Christ. 

" His preaching could not but arrest attention, 
though his elocution was not good, and his voice 
rather shrill. He was, according to Wodrow, ' one 
of the most moving and affectionate preachers in 
his time, or perhaps in any age of the Church.' 
Especially when he came to dwell upon the subject 
he so delighted in, Jesus Christ, his manner grew 
so animated that it seemed as if he would have 
flown out of the pulpit. An English merchant said 



Historical and Biographical Essay. 27. 

of him in days when controversy might have turned 
him to other themes : ' I went to St. Andrews, 
where I heard a sweet, majestic-looking man, [R. 
Blair,] and he showed me the majesty of God. 
After him I heard a little fair man, [Rutherford,] | 
and he showed me the loveliness of Christ! 

"Anworth was dear to him as the sphere ap- 
pointed him by his Master, more than because of 
the fruits of his labors. Two years after being set- 
tled there, he writes : ' I see exceedingly small fruit 
of my ministry. I would be glad of one soul, to be 
a crown of joy and rejoicing in the day of Christ.' 
His people were ' like hot iron, which cooleth when 
out of the fire.' Still he labored in hope, and 
labored often almost beyond his strength. Once he 
says, 'I have a grieved heart daily in my calling.' 
He speaks of his pained breast, at another time, on 
the evening of the Lord's Day, when his work was 
done. But he had seasons of refreshing, to his own 
soul at least, especially when the Lord's Supper was 
dispensed. Of these seasons he frequently speaks. 
He asks his friend, Marion Macknaught, to help 
with her prayers on such an occasion, 'that being 
one of the days wherein Christ was wont to make 1 
merry with his friends.' It was often, then, that 
with special earnestness he besought the Father to 



2S Historical and Biographical Essa y. 

distribute ' the great Loaf, Christ, to the children of 
his family.' 

"Anworth Church was filled, but not altogether 
by parishioners. Many came from great distances ; 
among others, several that were converted, seven- 
teen years before, under John Welsh, at Ayr. These 
all helped him by their prayers, as did also a goodly 
number of godly people in the parish itself, who 
were the fruit of the ministry of his predecessor. 
Yet over the unsaved he yearned most tenderly. 
At one time we hear him say, 'I would lay my 
dearest joys in the gap between you and eternal 
destruction.' At another, ' My witness is in heaven : 
your heaven would be two heavens to me, and your 
salvation two salvations.' He could appeal to his 
people: 'My day-thoughts and my night-thoughts 
are of you ;' and he could appeal to God : ' O my 
Lord, judge if my ministry be not dear to me ; but 
not so dear by many degrees as Christ my Lord." 

"All classes of people of Anworth were objects 
of his care. He maintained a friendly intercourse 
with people of high rank, and many of his letters 
are addressed to such persons. But the herd boys 
were not beneath his special attention. He writes 
of them when at Aberdeen, and exclaims, ' O ! if I 
might but speak to thee, or your herd boys, of my 



Historical and Biographical Essay. 29 

worthy Master.' He had a heart for the young of 
all classes, so that he could say of two children of 
one of his friends, ' I pray for them by name ;' and 
could thus take time to notice one : ' Your daughter 
desires a Bible and a gown. I hope she shall use 
the Bible well, which if she do the gown is the 
better bestowed.' He lamented over the few that 
cry 'hosanna' in their youth. 'Christ is an tui- 
known Christ to young ones, and therefore they 
seek him not because they know him not.' He 
dealt with individual parishioners so closely and so 
personally as to be able to appeal to them that he 
had so done. He addresses one of them, Jean 
M'Millan : ' I did what I could to put you within 
grips of Christ ; I told you Christ's testament and 
latter-will plainly.' He so carried them about with 
him, — like the priest with the twelve tribes on his 
breast-plate — that he could declare to Gordon of 
Cardoness, ' Thoughts of your soul depart not from 
me in my sleep. My soul was taken up when others 
were sleeping, how to have Christ betrothed with a 
bride in that part of the land,' namely, Anworth. 
He so prayed over them and for them that he fears 
not to say : ' There I wrestled with the angel and 
prevailed. Woods, trees, meadows, and hills are 
my witnesses that I drew on a fair match betwixt 



30 Historical and Biographical Essay. 

Christ and Anworth.' It is related that on first 
coming to the parish there was a piece of ground 
on Mossrobin farm, where on Sabbath afternoon the 
people used to play at foot-ball. On one occasion 
he repaired to the spot and pointed out their sin, 
calling on the objects round to be witnesses against 
them if they persevered, especially three large stones, 
two of which still remain, and are called ' RutJicr- 
forcVs witnesses.' 

"All that is told us of his death-bed is character- 
istic of the man. He said when asked, 'What 
think ye now of Christ ?' — ' I shall live and adore 
him. Glory dwelleth in Immanuel's land.' The 
same afternoon he said : ' I shall sleep in Christ, 
and when I awake I shall be satisfied with his like- 
ness.' Once he cried aloud, 'O for arms to em- 
brace Him ! O for a well-tuned harp !' This last 
expression he used more than once, as if already 
stretching out his hand to get his golden harp, and 
join the redeemed in their new song. He also said 
on another occasion : ' I hear him saying to me, 
" Come up hither." ' His little daughter Agnes, 
only eleven years of age, stood by his bedside ;Tie 
looked on her, and said : ' I have left her upon the 
Lord.' Well might the man say so, who could so 
fully testify of his portion in the Lord as a goodly 



Historical and Biographical Essay. 31 

heritage. To four of his brethren, who came to 
see him, he said : ' My Lord and Master is chief of 
ten thousands of thousands. None is comparable 
to Him in heaven, or in earth. Dear brethren, do 
all for Him. Pray for Christ. Preach for Christ! 
He seemed to know the hour of his departure, not 
perhaps so surely as Paul, (2 Tim. iv, 6,) or Peter, 
(2 Peter i, 14,) yet still in a manner that seems 
to indicate that the Lord draws very near his serv- 
ants in that hour, and gives glimpses of what he 
is doing. On the last day of his life, in the after- 
noon, he said : ' This night will close the door, and 
fasten my anchor within the vail, and I shall go 
away in a sleep by five o'clock in the morning.' 
And so it was. He entered Immanuel's land at 
that very hour, March 20, 1661, at his house in St. 
Andrews, and is now — as himself would have said — 
' sleeping in the bosom of the Almighty,' till the 
Lord come. One of his dying sayings was : ' There 
is nothing now between me and the resurrection, 
but, " This day thou shalt be with me in Paradise." ' 
And Livingstone records that his last words were : 
* Glory, glory dwelleth in Immanuel's land !' " 

His "Letters" are a source of unfailing delight 
to all who love the name of Jesus, who rejoice in 
the riches of free grace, who seek to increase in 



32 Historical and Biographical Essay. 

holiness, who feel the need of consolation in sick- 
ness and trials, and who would catch a glimpse, 
through faith, of the heavenly inheritance. Hatred 
of sin, love of sanctification, content, and even joy 
in sorrow, a disposition to magnify the Lord Jesus, 
and a longing for the " mountain of myrrh and the 
hill of frankincense," was his constant experience. 
And may such be the experience of all who peruse 
these precious pages ! 

"The whole soul of the redeemed," some one 
has said, "falls consciously and completely into the 
whole soul of the Redeemer. To him in such a 
state how precious is his Lord and Lover! How 
he dotes on him ; how he longs to see him, to hear 
his voice, to feel his arms of love about him, to 
rest his weary head on his sympathizing breast, to 
look into his eyes, burning with love, with eyes 
that speak again ! How he delights in the sense 
of this companionship, this oneness of being and 
blessing, and is supremely happy in the feeling that 
death hath no dominion over it — nay, that death 
only insures it a greater fullness ; that it is, as 
marriage to betrothed ones, the consummation of 
felicity. 

"This holy passion of love is the highest, the 
only real expression of Christian experience. It 



Historical and Biographical Essay. 33 

finds utterance from end to end of the Book of 
God. It is the breathing of David, Solomon, Paul, 
and John. It is the prayer and discourse of Christ. 
It has carried multitudes through bloodiest deaths, 

'Who clasp the stake with a light laugh, 
And wrap their burning robes round, praising God.' 

It has blossomed into the most passionate poetry. 
No lover's dictionary contains such vehement long- 
ings, such sweeps of infinite and inexpressible long- 
ing and exhausting devotion as the hymns of the 
Church." 

And the religious "Letters" of Rutherford are 
sacred lyrics. They drop sweetness. They bloom 
with a celestial fragrance. They sing in the hearts 
of the devout like the songs of the angels. They 
seem echoes from the harps of the glorified. 

Rutherford will never be forgotten, for the mem- 
ory of the just is imperishable. He has achieved 
immortality for earth and heaven. He will be a 
witness for Jesus through the ages — a witness to 
the sweetness, the sufficiency, and the eternity of 
his love! 

"As 'mid the ever-rolling sea 
The eternal isles established be, 
'Gainst which the billows of the main 
Fret, rage, and break themselves in vain ; 
3 



34 Historical and Biographical Essay. 

As in the heavens the urns divine 

Of golden light forever shine; 

Though clouds may darken, storms may rage, 

They still shine on from age to age; 

So, through the ocean-tide of years, 
The memory of the just appears; 
So, through the tempest and the gloom, 
The good man's virtues light the tomb." 



|tei. 




DARE say that angels' pens, angels' tongues, 
nay, as many worlds of angels as there are 
drops of water in all the seas, and fountains, 
and rivers of the earth, can not paint him out to 
you. I think his sweetness, since I was a prisoner, 
hath swelled upon me to the greatness of two 
heavens. O for a soul as wide as the utmost circle 
of the highest heaven, that containeth all, to con- 
tain his love ! And yet I could hold but little of it. 
O what a sight, to be up in heaven, in that fair 
orchard of the New Paradise, and to see, and smell, 
and touch, and kiss that fair field-flower, that ever- 
green Tree of Life! His bare shadow would be 
enough for me ; a sight of him would be the earn- 
est of heaven to me. 



36 A Garden of Spices. 

Fie, fie upon us who love fair things, as fair gold, 
fair houses, fair lands, fair pleasures, fair honors, 
and fair persons, and do not pine and melt away 
with love to Christ! O, would to God I had more 
love, for his sake! O for as much as would lie 
betwixt me and heaven, for his sake! O for as 
much as would go round about the earth, and over 
the heaven, yea, the heaven of heavens, and ten 
thousand worlds, that I might let all out upon fair, 
fair, only fair Christ! 

Suppose that our Lord would manifest his art, 
and make ten thousand heavens of good and glori- 
ous things, and of new joys devised out of the 
deep of infinite wisdom. He could not make the 
like of Christ, for Christ is God, and God can not 
be made. O, when Christ and you shall meet 
about the utmost boundary of time and the entry 
into eternity, you shall see heaven in his face at 
the first look, and salvation and glory sitting in his 
countenance and betwixt his eyes! 

O how shallow a soul I have to take in Christ's 
love ; for let worlds be multiplied, according to 
angels' understanding, in millions, till they weary 
themselves, these worlds could not contain the 



Christ. 37 

thousandth part of his love ! O that I could join 
in among the throng of angels, and seraphim, and 
now glorified saints, and could raise a new love- 
song to Christ before all the world! I am pained 
with wondering at new opened treasures in Christ! 
If every finger, member, bone, and joint were a 
torch burning in the hottest fires in hell, I would 
that they could all send out love-praises, high songs 
of praise forever more to that Plant of Renown, 
to that Royal and High Prince, Jesus my Lord! 

O that my hairs, all my members, and all my 
bones were well-tuned tongues, to sing the high 
praises of my great and glorious King ! Help me 
to lift up Christ upon his throne, and to lift him 
up above all the thrones of the clay kings, the 
dying scepter-bearers of this world! 

Surely, running over love, that vast, huge, 
boundless love of Christ, is the only thing I 
most fain would be in hands with. He knoweth 
that I have little but the love of that love; and 
thus I shall be happy, suppose I never get another 
heaven, but only an eternal feasting of that love! 
But, suppose my wishes were poor, he is not poor; 
Christ, all the seasons of the year, is dropping 
sweetness. If I had vessels I might fill them, but 



3S A Garden of Spices. 

my old, riven, and running-out dish, even when I 
am at the well, can bring little away. Nothing but 
glory will make tight and fast on leaking and rifty 
vessels. Alas! I have spilled more of Christ's 
grace, love, faith, humility, and godly sorrow than 
I have brought with me. How little of the sea 
can a child carry in his hand; as little am I able 
to take away of my great Sea, my boundless and 
running-over Christ Jesus ! 

O, would to my Lord that I could cause paper 
and ink to speak the worth and excellency, the 
high and loud praises of a Brother-ransomer ! The 
Ransomer needeth not my report; but O, that he 
would take it and make use of it! I should be 
happy if I had an errand to this world but for 
some few years, to spread proclamations, and out- 
cries, and love-letters of the highness, the highness 
forever more, the glory, the glory forever more of 
the Ransomer whose clothes were wet and dyed in 
blood! 

The love of Christ would keep all created 
tongues of men and angels in exercise, and busy 
day and night, to speak of it. Alas ! I can speak 
nothing of it, but wonder at three things in his love. 



Christ. 39 

First, freedom. O that lumps of sin should get 
such love for nothing ! Secondly, the sweetness of 
his love. I give over either to speak or write of it ; 
but those that feel it may better bear witness what 
it is ; but it is so sweet that, next to Christ himself, 
nothing can match it. Nay, I think that a soul 
could live eternally blessed on Christ's love, and 
feed upon no other thing : yea, when Christ in love 
giveth a blow, it doeth a soul good ; and it is a kind 
of comfort and joy to it, to get a cuff, with the 
lovely, sweet, and soft hand of Jesus. And, thirdly, 
what power and strength are in his love ! I am 
persuaded it can climb a steep hill with hell upon 
its back ; and swim through water and not drown ; 
and sing in the fire and find no pain ; and triumph 
in losses, prisons, sorrow, exile, disgrace, and laugh 
and rejoice in death. 

When I have worn my tongue to the stump 
in praising of Christ I have done nothing to him. 
I must let him alone ; for my withered arms will 
not go about his high, wide, long, and broad love. 
What remaineth, then, but my debt to the love of 
Christ lie unpaid to all eternity? 

We are all obliged to love heaven for Christ's 
sake. He graceth heaven and all his Father's 



4 o A Garden of Spices. 

house with his presence. He is a Rose that beauti- 
fieth all the Upper Garden of God — a leaf of that 
rose of God for smell is worth a world. 

If I had as many angels' tongues as there have 
fallen drops of rain since the creation, or as there 
are leaves of trees in all the forests of the earth, or 
of stars in the heavens to praise, yet my Lord Jesus 
would never get his due from me. 

Now who is like to that royal King, crowned in 
Zion ! Where shall I get a seat for royal Majesty, 
to set him on? If I could set him as far above 
the heavens as thousand thousands of hights de- 
vised by men and angels, I should think him but 
too low. His love hath neither brim nor bottom ; 
his love is like himself, it passeth all natural under- 
standing. I go to fathom it with my arms, but it is 
as if a child would take the globe of sea and land 
in his two short arms — blessed and holy is his 



Christ's love is young glory and young heaven ; 
it would soften hell's pain to be filled with it. 
What would I refuse to suffer, if I could get but a 
draught of love at my heart's desire.? O, what 



Christ. 



4i 



price can be given for Him ! Angels can not weigh 
him. 0, his weight, his sweetness, his overpassing 
beauty! If men and angels would come and look 
to that great and princely One, their shallowness 
could never take up his depth, their narrowness 
could never comprehend his breadth, hight, and 
length. If ten thousand thousand worlds of angels 
were created, they might all tire themselves in 
wondering at his beauty, and begin again to wonder 
of new. O, that I were able to come near him, to 
kiss his feet, to hear his voice, to feel the smell 
of his ointments ! But, O, alas ! I have little of 
him ! Yet I long for more. 

O ! that the heaven, and the Heaven of heavens 
were paper, and the sea ink, and the multitude 
of mountains pens of brass, and I able to write my 
dearest, my loveliest, my sweetest, my matchless, 
and my most unequaled and marvelous Well-Be- 
loved ! Woe is me, I can not set him out to men 
and angels ! I am put to my wit's end how to get 
his name made great. How sweet is Christ's back ! 
O, what there is in his face ! Those that see his 
face, how are they able to get their eye plucked off 
him again ! 



42 A Garden of Spices. 

O that I could write a book of his praises ! 
O ! fairest among the sons of men, why stayest 
thou so long away ? O, heavens ! move fast ! O, 
time ! run, run, and hasten the marriage-day ! For 
love is tormented with delays. O, angels ! O, 
seraphims, who stand before him ! O, blessed 
spirits, who now see his face, set him on high ! 
For when ye have worn your harps in his praises 
all is too little, and is nothing to cast the smell 
of the praise of that fair flower, that fragrant Rose 
of Sharon — through many worlds ! 

When I have spoken of Christ till my head tire, 
I have said just nothing. I may begin again. A 
Godhead, a Godhead is a world's wonder. Let 
ten thousand thousand new-made worlds of angels 
and elect men, and double them in number ten 
thousand, thousand, thousand times ! let their heart 
and tongues be ten thousand thousand times 
more agile and large than the heart and tongues 
of the seraphims that stand with six wings before 
him, when they have said all for the glorifying and 
praising of the Lord Jesus, they have but spoken 
little or nothing. O that I could wear this tongue 
to the stump in extolling his Highness ! 



Christ. 43 

And what fairer thing than Christ ? O, fair 
sun, and fair moon, and fair stars, and fair flowers, 
and fair roses, and fair lilies, and fair creatures ! 
But O, ten thousand thousand times fairer Lord 
Jesus ! Alas ! I wronged him in making the com- 
parison this way ! O black sun and moon ; but 
O fair Lord Jesus ! O black flowers, and black 
lilies and roses ; but O fair, fair, ever fair Lord 
Jesus ! O all fair things, black and deformed, 
without beauty when ye are beside this fairest 
Lord Jesus ! O black heaven ! but O fair Christ ! 

black angels ! but surpassingly fair Lord Jesus ! 

1 would seek no more to make me happy for ever- 
more, but a thorough and clear sight of Jesus my 
Lord. Let my eyes enjoy his fairness, and stare 
him forever in the face, and I have all that can 
be wished. Get Christ rather than gold or silver ; 
seek Christ, howbeit you should lose all things for 
him. 

My word, I know, will not highten him. He 
needeth not such props under his feet to set his 
glory high ; but O that I could raise him the 
hight of heaven, and the breadth and length of 
ten heavens, in the estimation of all his young 
lovers ! For we have all shapen Christ but too 



44 A Garden of Spices. 

narrow and too short, and formed conceptions of his 
love in our conceit very unworthy of it. 

I never write to any of him as much as I have 
felt. O that 1 could write a book of Christ, and of 
his love ! Suppose I were made white ashes, and 
burnt for this same truth, that men count but as 
knots of straw, it were my gain, if my ashes could 
proclaim the worth, excellency, and love of my Lord 
Jesus. There is much telling of Christ : I give 
over the weighing of him ; heaven would not be 
the beam of a balance to weigh him in. 

I can not think but it must be exhilarating and 
sweet to see the white and red of Christ's fair face ; 
for he is white and ruddy, and the " Chiefest among 
ten thousand." I am sure that must be a well-made 
face of his ; heaven must be in his visage ; glory, 
glory for evermore must sit on his countenance. I 
dare not curse the mask and covering that are 
on his face ; but O that there were a hole in it ! 
O that God would tear the mask ! 

O what am I to love such a One, or to be loved 
by that high and lofty One ! I think the angels 
may blush to look upon him ; and what am I to 



Christ. 45 

defile such infinite brightness with my sinful eyes ! 
O that Christ would come near, and stand still, 
and give me leave to look upon him ! For to look 
seemeth the poor man's privilege, since he may for 
nothing, and without hire, behold the sun. I should 
have a king's life, if I had no other thing to do than 
for evermore to behold and eye my Lord Jesus ! 

Come near, and take a view of that transparent 
beauty which is in Christ, which would bury the 
love of ten thousand millions of worlds and angels, 
and hold them all at work. Surely I am grieved 
that men will not spend their whole love upon that 
royal and princely well-beloved, that high and lofty 
One — for it is cursed love that runneth another way 
than upon him. 

O what a Father and Husband you have ! O 
that I had pen and ink, and genius to write of him ! 
Let heaven and earth be consolidated into many 
and pure gold, it will not weigh the thousandth part 
of Christ's love to a soul, even me, a poor prisoner. 
O that is a massy and marvelous love ! Men and 
angels ! unite your force and strength in one, ye 
shall not heave, nor poise it off the ground. Ten 
thousand worlds — as many worlds as angels can 



46 A Garden of Spices. 

number, and then as a new world of angels can 
multiply, would not all be the beam of a balance to 
weigh Christ's excellency, sweetness, and love. Put 
ten earths into one, and let a rose grow greater than 
ten whole earths, or whole worlds, O what beauty 
would be in it, and what a smell would it cast ! 
But a blast of the breath of that fairest Rose in all 
God's paradise, even of Christ Jesus, our Lord — 
one look of that fairest face would be infinitely in 
beauty and smell above all imaginable and created 
glory. 

If there were ten thousand thousand millions 
of worlds, and as many heavens, full of men and 
angels, Christ would not be pinched to supply all 
our wants, and to fill us all. Christ is a well of 
life ; but who knoweth how deep it is to the bottom ? 
Put the beauty of ten thousand thousand worlds of 
paradises, like the Garden of Eden, in one ; put all 
trees, all flowers, all smells, all colors, all tastes, all 
joys, all loveliness, all sweetness, in one. O what 
a fair and excellent thing would that be ? And yet 
it would be less to that fair, and dearest well-be- 
loved Christ, than one drop of rain to the whole 
seas, rivers, lakes, and fountains of ten thousand 
earths. 



Christ. 47 

The discourses of angels, or love-books written 
by the congregation of seraphim — all their wits 
being conjoined and melted into one — would forever 
be in the nether side of truth, and of plentifully 
declaring the thing as it is. The infiniteness, the 
boundlessness of that incomparable excellency that 
is in Jesus, is a great word. God send me, if it 
were but the relics and leaven of an ounce weight 
or two, of his matchless love ; and suppose I never 
got another heaven — provided this blessed fire were 
evermore burning — I could not but be happy forever. 

He hath taught me in my wilderness not to 
shuffle my Lord Jesus, nor to intermix him with 
creature-vanities ; nor to spin or twine Christ, or 
his sweet love into one web, or into one thread with 
the world, and the things thereof. O that I could 
hold and keep Christ all alone, and mix him with 
nothing! O that I could cry down the price and 
weight of my cursed self, and cry up the price of 
Christ, and double and triple, and augment and 
highten to millions, the price and worth of Christ ! 

If it were possible that heaven, yea, ten heavens, 
were laid in the balance with Christ, I would think 
the smell of his breath above them all. Sure I am 



4S A Garden of Spices. 

that he is the far best half of heaven ; yea, he is all 
heaven, and more than all heaven ; and my testi- 
mony of him is, that ten lives of black sorrow, ten 
deaths, ten hells of pain, ten furnaces of brimstone, 
and all exquisite torments, were all too little for 
Christ, if our suffering could be a hire to buy him ; 
and therefore faint not in your sufferings or hazards 
for him. O that I could sell my laughter, joy, ease, 
and all for him, and be content with a straw-bed, 
and bread by weight, and water by measure, in the 
camp of our weeping Christ ! I know that his sack- 
cloth and ashes are better than the fool's laughter, 
which is like the crackling of thorns under a pot. 

Ten thousand thousand heavens would not be 
one scale or the half of the scale of the balance to 
lay him in ! O, black angels, in comparison of 
him ! O, dim, and dark, and lightless sun, in re- 
gard of that fair Sun of Righteousness ! O, unsub- 
stantial and worthless heavens of heavens when 
they stand beside my worthy, and lofty, and high, 
and excellent Well-beloved! O, weak and infirm 
clay kings! O, soft and feeble mountains of brass, 
and weak created strength, in regard of our mighty 
and strong Lord of armies! O, foolish wisdom of 
men and angels, when it is laid in the balance 



Christ. 49 

beside that spotless, substantial wisdom of the 
Father ! 

O, who can add to Him who is that great All? 
If he would create suns and moons, new heavens, 
thousand and thousand degrees more perfect than 
those that now are, and again make a new creation 
ten thousand thousand degrees in perfection beyond 
that new creation, and again, still for eternity mul- 
tiply new heavens, they should never be a per- 
fect resemblance of that infinite excellency, order, 
weight, measure, beauty, and sweetness that is in 
him! 

O, O, but we have short, and narrow, and creep- 
ing thoughts of Jesus, and do but shape Christ in 
our conceptions, according to some created por- 
traiture ! O, angels, lend your help ! O, heaven 
of heavens ! O, glorified tenants and triumphing 
households with the Lamb, put in new psalms and 
love-sonnets of the excellency of our Bridegroom, 
and help us set him on high ! O, indwellers of 
earth and heaven, sea and air, and O, all ye created 
beings within the bosom of the utmost circle of 
the great world, O come help us to set on high 
the praises of our Lord ! 
4 



50 A Garden of Spices. 

Remember what He is. When twenty thousand 
millions of heaven's lovers have worn their hearts 
threadbare of love, all is nothing, yea, less than 
nothing, to his matchless worth and excellency ! 
O, so broad and so deep as the sea of his desirable 
loveliness is ! 

Were there ten thousand millions of heavens 
created above these highest heavens, and again as 
many above them, and as many above them, till 
angels were wearied with counting, it were but too 
low a seat to fix the princely throne of that Lord 
Jesus above them all; created heavens are too low 
a seat of majesty for him. If Christ doth own me, 
let me be in the grave in a bloody winding-sheet, 
and go from the scaffold to four quarters — to be 
cut into four quarters — to grave or no grave. 

They lose nothing who gain Christ. 

When you have sold all that you have, and 
bought the field wherein this pearl is, you will 
think it no bad market ; for if you be in him, all 
his is yours, and you are in him; therefore, "be- 
cause he lives, you shall live also." And what is 
that else, but as if the Son had said, "I will not 
have heaven, except my redeemed ones be with 



Christ. 51 

me ; they and I can not live asunder ; abide in 
me and I in you." O, sweet communion, when 
Christ and we are promiscuously united, and are 
no longer two ! 

There is none like him. I would not exchange 
one smile of his lovely face with kingdoms ! Let 
others take their poor heaven in this life. Envy 
them not ; but let your soul, like a pettish and ill- 
bred child, object to all things and disdain them, 
except one only. Either Christ or nothing ! Either 
the King's Son, or no husband at all. This is hum- 
ble and worthy ambition. 

All lovers, blush when ye stand beside Christ ! 
Woe upon all love but the love of Christ ; hunger, 
hunger for evermore be upon all heaven but Christ ; 
shame, shame for evermore be upon all but Christ's 
glory! I cry, death, death be upon all manner of 
life but the life of Christ! O, what is it that hold- 
eth us asunder' 1 

When the time shall come that your eye-strings 
shall break, and your face wax pale, your breath 
grow cold, and this house of clay shall totter, 
and your one foot shall be over the boundary in 



52 A Garden of Spices. 

eternity, it will be your comfort and joy that you 
gave your name to Christ. The greatest part of 
the world think heaven at the next door, and 
that Christianity is an easy task; but they will 
be beguiled. 

The Church hath been, since the world began, 
ever hanging by a small thread, and all the hands 
of hell and of the wicked have been drawing at 
the thread ; but, God be thanked, they only break 
their arms by pulling, but the thread is not bro- 
ken, for the sweet fingers of Christ our Lord have 
twisted it. Lord, hold the thread whole! 

You never knew one in God's Book who put 
their hand to the Lord's work for his Church but 
the world and Satan did bark against them, and 
bite, also, when they had power. You will not lay 
one stone on Zion's wall but they will labor to cast 
it down again. 

To want complaints of weakness is for heaven 
and angels that never sinned, not for Christians in 
Christ's camp on earth. I think that our weakness 
maketh us the Church of the redeemed ones, and 
Christ's field that the mediator should labor in. If 
there were no diseases on earth there needeth no 



Christ. 53 

physicians on earth. No man should rejoice at 
weakness and diseases, but I think that we may- 
have a sort of gladness at boils and sores, because, 
without them, Christ's fingers, as a slain Lord, 
would never have touched our skin. I dare not 
thank myself, but I dare thank God's depth of wise 
providence that I have an errand in me, while I 
live, for Christ to come and visit me, and bring 
with him his drugs and his balm. Weakness can 
speak and cry when we have not a tongue. Weak- 
ness is to make us the strongest things ; if our 
sinful weakness swell up to the clouds, Christ's 
strength will swell up to the sun, and far above 
the heaven of heavens. 

I must have you praying for me. I am utterly 
ashamed for evermore with Christ's goodness ; and, 
in private, on the 17th and 18th of August, I got a 
full answer of my Lord to be a graced minister, and 
a chosen arrow hidden in his own quiver. But 
know that this assurance is not kept but by watch- 
ing and prayer ; and, therefore, help me. I have 
gotten now — honor to my Lord — the way to open, 
and push aside the bar of his door ; and I think it 
easy to get any thing of the King by prayer, and to 
use holy violence with him. 



54 A Garden of Spices. 

As for the Church, the government is upon 
Christ's shoulders, and he will plead for the blood 
of his saints. The bush hath been burning above 
five thousand years, and we never yet saw the 
ashes of this fire ; yet a little while, and the vision 
shall not tarry; it will speak and not lie. I am 
more afraid of my duty than of the head, Christ's 
government. 

I shall be glad to be a witness to behold the 
kingdoms of the world become Christ's. I could 
stay out of heaven many years to see that victori- 
ous, triumphing Lord act that prophesied part of 
his soul-conquering love in taking into his kingdom 
the greater sister, that Church of the Jews, who 
formerly counted our well-beloved for her little sis- 
ter — Canticles viii, 8 — to behold him set up as an 
ensign and a banner of love to the ends of the 
world ! 

I had rather mar twenty prayers than not pray 
at all. Let my broken words go up to Heaven : 
when they come up into the great angel's golden 
censer, that compassionate Advocate will put to- 
gether my broken prayers, and perfume them. 
Words are but accidents of prayer. 



Christ. 55 

"He had power over the angel, and prevailed." 
He is a strong man, indeed, who overmatcheth 
Heaven's strength, and the Holy One of Israel, the 
Strong Lord ; which is done by a secret supply of 
Divine strength within, wherewith the weakest, be- 
ing strengthened, overcome and conquer. It shall 
be great victory, to blow out the flame of that fur- 
nace you are now in with the breath of faith ; and 
when hell, men, malice, cruelty, falsehood, devils, 
the seeming frowns of a sweet Lord, meet you in 
the teeth, if you then, as a captive of hope, as one 
fettered in hope's prison, run to your stronghold, 
even from God frowning to God frowning, and be- 
lieve the salvation of the Lord in the dark, which is 
your only victory, your enemies, that are but pieces 
of malicious clay, shall die as men, and be con- 
founded. 



56 A Garden of Spices. 



Jesus, I love thy charming name : 

'T is music to mine ear : 
Fain would I sound it out so loud, 

That earth and heaven should hear. 

Yes, thou art precious to my soul, 

My transport and my trust : 
Jewels to thee are gaudy toys, 

And gold is sordid dust. 

All my capacious powers can wish 

In thee doth richly meet : 
Not to mine eyes is light so dear, 

Nor friendship half so sweet. 

Thy grace still dwells upon my heart, 

And sheds its fragrance there ; 
The noblest balm of all its wounds, 

The cordial of its care. 

I '11 speak the honors of thy name 

With my last laboring breath ; 
Then, speechless, clasp thee in mine arms, 

The antidote of death. 

Doddridge. 



II. 



Ik frogs and ife mam. 




WEET, sweet is his cross ; light, light and 
easy is his yoke. O what a sweet step 
were it up to my Father's house through 
ten deaths, for the truth and cause of that unknown, 
and so not half well-loved, Plant of Renown, the 
Man called the Branch, the Chief among ten thou- 
sand, the Fairest among the sons of men. O what 
unseen joys, how many hidden heart-burnings of 
love are in the remnants of the sufferings of Christ ! 
Welcome, welcome, sweet, sweet and glorious cross 
of Christ ; welcome, sweet Jesus, with thy light 
cross ; thou hast now gained and gotten all my 
love from me ; keep what thou hast gotten. 

Those who can take that crabbed tree hand- 
somely upon their back, and fasten it with skillful 



58 A Garden of Spices. 

adaptation, shall find it such a burden as wings are 
unto a bird, or sails to a ship. 

If it were come to exchanging of crosses, I would 
not exchange my cross with any : I am well-pleased 
with Christ, and he with me. 

I find that my Lord hath over-gilded that black 
tree — the cross — and hath perfumed it, and oiled it 
with joy and consolation. Christ beareth me good 
company; he hath raised me, when I saw it not, 
lifting the cross off my shoulders, so that I think it 
to be but a feather, because underneath are ever- 
lasting arms. God forbid it come to bartering or 
exchanging of crosses ; for I think my cross so 
sweet that I know not where I would get the like 
of it. Christ's honeycombs drop so abundantly that 
they sweeten my gall. 

I find Christ, aye the longer the better, and 
therefore can not but rejoice in his salvation, who 
hath made my chains my wings, and hath made me 
a king over my crosses, and over my adversaries. 
Glory, glory, glory to his high and holy name ! Not 
one ounce, not one grain weight more is laid on me 
than he hath enabled me to bear ; and I am not so 



The Cross and the Crown. 59 

much wearied to suffer as Zion's haters are to 
persecute. 

My cross is both my cross and my reward. 
that men would sound his high praises! I love 
Christ's worst reproaches, his frowns, his cross, 
better than all the world's plastered glory : my heart 
is not longing to be back again from Christ's 
country: it is a sweet soil I am come to. 

Some have written to me that I am possibly too 
joyful of the cross ; but my joy overleapeth the 
cross, it is bounded and terminated upon Christ. I 
know that the sun will overcloud and eclipse, and 
that I shall again be put to walk in the shadow ; but 
Christ must be welcome to come and go, as he 
thinketh meet. 

Thanks to God for crosses ! When we count 
and reckon our losses in seeking God, we find that 
godliness is great gain. Great partners of a shipful 
of gold are glad to see the ship come to the harbor : 
surely we and our Lord Jesus together have a ship- 
ful of gold coming home, and our gold is in that ship. 
Some are so in love, or rather in lust, with this 
life, that they sell their part of the ship for a little 



60 A Garden of Spices. 

thing. I would counsel you to buy hope, but sell it 
not, and give not away your crosses for nothing : 
the inside of Christ's cross is white and joyful, and 
the farthest end of the black cross is a fair and 
glorious heaven of ease ; and seeing Christ has 
fastened heaven to the far end of the cross, and 
he will not loose the knot himself, and none else 
can — for when Christ tieth a knot all the world 
can not loose it — let us, then, count it exceeding 
joy when we fall into divers temptations. 

Would to God that all this kingdom, and all 
that know God, knew what is betwixt Christ and 
me in this prison — what kisses, embracements, and 
love communions. I take his cross in my arms 
with joy ; I bless it, I rejoice in it — suffering for 
Christ is my garland. I would not exchange Christ 
for ten thousand worlds ! Nay, if the comparison 
could stand, I would not exchange Christ with 
heaven. 

If we did but speak according to the matter, 
a cross for Christ should have another name ; yea, a 
cross, especially when he cometh with his arms full 
of joys, is the happiest hard tree that ever was laid 
upon my weak shoulder. Christ and his cross 



The Cross and the Crown: 6i 

together are sweet company, and a blessed couple. 
My prison is my palace, my sorrow is with child 
of joy ; my losses are rich losses, my pain easy pain, 
my heavy days are holy and happy days. 

The worst thing of Christ, even that which 
seemeth to be the repose of Christ, his hard cross, 
his black cross, is white and fair; and the cross 
receiveth a beautiful luster and a perfumed smell 
from Jesus. 

I know that he must be sweet himself, when his 
cross is so sweet. And it is the part of us all, if we 
marry himself, to marry the crosses, losses, and re- 
proaches, also, that follow him ; for mercy followeth 
Christ's cross. His prison, for beauty, is made of 
marble and ivory ; his chains, that are laid on his 
prisoners, are golden chains ; and the sighs of the 
prisoner of hope are perfumed with comforts, the 
like whereof can not be bred or found on this side 
of sun and moon. 

I bless his high and great name that I like my 
sweet Master still, the longer the better; a sight 
of his cross is more awful than the weight of 
it. I think the worst things of Christ, bear his 



62 A Garden of Spices. 

reproaches and his cross — when I look on these not 
with bleared eyes — far rather to be chosen than the 
laughter and boon-laden joys of my adversaries. 

As for Christ's cross, I never received evil of it 
but what was of mine own making : when I mis- 
cooked Christ's physic no marvel that it hurt me ; 
for, since it was on Christ's back, it hath always 
a sweet smell; and these 1,600 years it keepeth the 
smell of Christ : nay, it is older than that too, for 
it is a long time since Abel first handled the cross, 
and had it laid upon his shoulder ; and down from 
him, all along to this very day, all the saints have 
known what it is. I am glad that Christ hath such 
a relation to this cross, and that it is called the 
cross of our Lord Jesus, and his reproach, as if 
Christ would claim it as his proper goods, and so 
it cometh into the reckoning among Christ's prop- 
erty : if it were simple evil, as sin is, Christ, who is 
not the author or owner of sin, would not own it. 

Take his cross with him cheerfully. Christ and 
his cross are not separable in this life ; howbeit, 
Christ and his cross part at heaven's door, for there 
is no house-room for crosses in heaven. One tear, 
one sigh, one sad heart, one fear, one loss, one 



The cross and the Crown. 63 

thought of trouble, can not find lodging there ; they 
are but the marks of our Lord Jesus down in this 
wide inn, and stormy country on this side of death : 
sorrow and the saints arc not married together; 
or, suppose it were so, Heaven would make a 
divorce. 

Fasten your hold upon Christ. I verily esteem 
him the best possession that I have. He is my 
Second in prison. Having him, though my cross 
were heavy as ten mountains of iron, when he 
putteth his sweet shoulder under me and it, my 
cross is but a feather. 

I give under my own handwriting a testimonial 
of Christ and his cross, that they are a sweet couple, 
and that Christ hath never yet been set in his due 
chair of honor among us all. O, I know not where 
to set him ! O for a high seat to that royal, princely 
One ! O that my poor soul had once a running-over 
flood of that love, to put sap into my dry root, and 
that that flood would spring out to the tongue and 
the pen, to utter great things to the high and due 
commendation of such a fair One! O holy, holy, 
hoi}- One ! Alas! there are too many dumb tongues 
in the world, and dry hearts, seeing there is employ- 
ment in Christ for them all, and ten thousand worlds 



64 A Garden of Spices. 

of angels and men more, to set on high and exalt 
the greatest prince of the kings of the earth. 

I dare not expound his dealing, as sorrow and 
weak faith often dictate to me: I look often with 
bleared and blind eyes to my Lord's cross ; and 
when I look to the wrong side of his cross, I know 
that I miss a step and slide ; surely I see that I 
have not legs of my own for carrying me to heaven ; 
I must go in at heaven's gates, borrowing strength 
from Christ. 

Christ is King of crosses, and King of devils, 
and King over hell, and King over malice. When 
he was in the grave he came out and brought the 
keys with him. He is Lord Jailer : nay, what say 
I ? He is Captain of the Castle, and he hath the 
keys of death and hell : and what are our troubles 
but little deaths ; and he who commandeth the 
great Castle commandeth also the little. 

Alas, we fools miscount our gain when we seem 
losers ! Believe me, I have no accusations against 
this well-born cross, for it is come of Christ's 
house, and is honorable, and is a gift ; " To you it 
is given to suffer." O, what fools are we to under- 
value his gifts, and to make light of that which is 



The Cross and the Crown. 65 

true honor! For if we could be faithful our tack- 
ling shall not loose, or our mast break, or our sails 
blow into the sea. The bastard crosses, the kinless 
and base-born crosses of worldliness, for evil-doing 
must be heavy and grievous ; but our afflictions are 
light and momentary. 

How sad a prisoner should I be if I knew not 
that my Lord Jesus had the keys of the prison 
himself, and that his death and blood have bought 
a blessing to our crosses as well as to ourselves ! I 
am sure that troubles have no prevailing right over 
us, if they be but our Lord's sergeants, to keep us 
in ward while we are in this side of heaven. I am 
persuaded, also, that they shall not go over the 
boundary -line, nor enter into heaven with us ; for 
they find no welcome there, where "there is no 
more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither any 
more pain ;" and, therefore, we shall leave them 
behind us. 

I find crosses to be Christ's carved work that 
he marketh out for us, and that with crosses he 
figureth and portrayeth us to his own image, cut- 
ting away pieces of our ill and corruption. " Lord, 
cut ; Lord, carve ; Lord, wound ; Lord, do any thing 
5 



66 A Garden of Spices. 

that may perfect the Father's image in us and make 
us meet for glory!" 

If your cross come through Christ's fingers ere 
it come to you, it receiveth a fair luster from him, 
it getteth a taste and relish of the King's spike- 
nard and of heaven's perfume, and the half of the 
gain, when Christ's shipful of gold cometh home, 
shall be yours. 

Till I shall be on the hall floor of the highest 
palace, and get a draught of glory out of Christ's 
hand, above and beyond time, and beyond death, I 
shall never, it is like, see fairer days than I saw 
under that blessed tree of my Lord's cross. 

Your cross is of the color of heaven and Christ, 
and bedecked with the faith and comfort of the 
Lord's faithful covenant; and that dye and color 
can abide fair weather, and neither be stained nor 
cast the color ; yea, it reflects a gleam of light like 
the cross of Christ, whose holy hands, many a day 
lifted up to God in prayer for sinners, were fettered 
and bound, as if those blessed hands had stolen 
and shed innocent blood. When your lovely, lovely 
Jesus had no better than the thief's doom, it is no 



The Cross and the Crown. 67 

wonder that your process be lawless and turned 
upside down ; for he was taken, fettered, buffeted, 
spit upon, whipped before he was convicted of any 
fault or sentenced. O, such a pair of sufferers and 
witnesses as high and royal Jesus and a poor piece 
of guilty clay paired together under one yoke ! O, 
how lovely is the cross with such a record ! 

Since, then, there is none equal to your Master 
and Prince, who hath chosen out for you, among 
many sufferings for sin, that only cross which com- 
eth nearest in likeness to his own cross, plated 
with consolation, take courage and comfort your- 
self in him who hath chosen you to glory hereafter, 
and to conformity with him here. We fools would 
have a cross of our own choosing, and would have 
our gall and wormwood sugared, our fire cold, and 
our death and grave warmed .with heat of life ; but 
he who hath brought many children to glory and 
lost none is our best tutor. I wish that when I 
am sick he may be keeper and comforter. 

When you are come to the other side the water, 
and have set down your foot on the shore of glori- 
ous eternity, and look back again to the waters, and 
to your wearisome journey, and shall see, in that 



68 A Garden of Spices. 

clear glass of endless glory, nearer to the bottom 
of God's wisdom, you shall then be forced to say, 
"If God had done otherwise with me than he hath 
done, I had never come to the enjoying of the 
crown of glory." 

Look for crosses, and while it is fair weather 
mend the sails of the ship. 

Your Lord will not give you painted crosses. 
He pareth not all the bitterness from the cross, 
neither taketh he the sharp edge quite from it ; 
for in that case it should be of your selecting, and 
not of his, which would have as little reason in it 
as it would have profit for us. 

Now, I persuade you that the greatest part but 
play with Christianity ; they put it by hastily and 
easily. I thought it had been an easy thing to be 
a Christian, and that to seek God had been at the 
next door ; but O, the windings and turnings, the 
ups and the downs that he hath led me through, 
and I see yet much way to the ford. 

Salvation is supposed to be at the door, and 
Christianity is thought an easy task ; but I find it 
hard, and the way straight and narrow, were it not 



The Cross and the Crown. 69 

that my Guide is content to wait on me, and to 
care for a tired traveler. 

I find one thing which I saw not well before: 
that when the saints are under trials and well hum- 
bled, little sins raise great cries and war-shouts in 
the conscience, and in prosperity conscience is a 
Pope, to give dispensations, and let out and in, and 
give latitude and elbow-room to the heart. O, how 
little care we for pardon at Christ's hand when we 
make dispensations ! And all is but child's play 
till a cross without begets a heavier cross within, 
and then we play no longer with our idols. It is 
good still to be severe against ourselves, for we but 
transform God's mercy into an idol, and an idol 
that' hath a dispensation to give for the turning of 
the grace of God into wantonness. 

I look not to win a way to my home without 
wounds and blood. Welcome, welcome cross of 
Christ, if Christ be with it. Christ hath so hand- 
somely fitted for my shoulders this rough tree of 
the cross as that it hurtcth me nowise. My treas- 
ure is up in Christ's coffers; my comforts are 
greater than you can believe; my pen shall lie for 
penury of words to write of them. God knoweth 
that I am filled with the joy of the Holy Ghost. 



70 A Garden of Spices. 

Now, I testify under my hand, out of some 
small experience, that Christ's cause, even with the 
cross, is better than the King's crown, and that his 
reproaches are sweet, his cross perfumed, the walls 
of my prison fair and large, and my losses gain. 

How am I obliged to my Lord, who, among 
many crosses, hath given me a selected and chosen 
cross, to suffer for the name of my Lord Jesus! 
Since I must have chains, he would put golden 
chains on me, plated over with many consolations ; 
seeing I must have sorrow, he hath selected out 
for me joyful sorrow. My crosses come through 
mercy and love's fingers, from the kind heart of a 
brother, Christ my Lord, and therefore they must 
be sweet and sugared. O, what am I, such a lump, 
such a rotten mass of sin, to be counted a child 
worthy to be nurtured and stricken with the best 
rod in my Father's house, the golden rod wherewith 
my eldest brother, the Lord, heir of the inheritance, 
and his faithful witnesses were stricken withal! 

It is good that your crosses will but accompany 
you to heaven's gates ; in can they not go ; the 
gates shall be closed upon them when you shall be 
admitted to the throne. Time standeth not still: 



The Cross and the Crown. 71 

eternity is hard at our door. 0, what is laid up for 
you ; therefore harden your face against the wind ; 
and the Lamb, your husband, is making ready 
for you ! 

They are blessed who suffer and sin not, for 
suffering is the badge which Christ hath put upon 
his followers. Take what we can to heaven, the 
way is hedged up with crosses ; there is no way 
but to break through them. Wit and wiles, shifts 
and laws will not find a way around the cross of 
Christ, but we must through. One thing, by expe- 
rience, my Lord hath taught me, that the waters 
betwixt this and heaven may all be ridden if we be 
well horsed — I mean if we be in Christ — and not 
one shall drown by the way but such as love their 
own destruction. 

Think not Christ will do with you in the matter 
of suffering as the Pope doth in the matter of sin. 
You shall not find that Christ will sell a dispensa- 
tion, or give a bankrupt's protection against crosses. 
Crosses are proclaimed as common accidents to all 
the saints, and in them standeth a part of our com- 
munion with Christ ; but there lieth a sweet casu- 
alty to the cross, even Christ's presence and his 
comforts, when they are sanctified. 



72 A Garden of Spices. 

What God layeth on let me suffer; for some 
have one cross, some seven, some ten. some half a 
cross ; yet all the saints have whole and full joy, 
and seven crosses have seven joys. Christ is cum- 
bered with me — to speak so — and my cross, yet he 
doth not separate himself from me, we are not 
at variance. 

I see that the cross is tied, with Christ's hand, 
to the end of an honest profession. We are but 
fools to endeavor to loose Christ's knot. 

Verily, for myself, I am so well pleased with 
Christ and his noble and honest-born cross, this 
cross that is come of Christ's house and is of kin 
to himself, that I should weep if it should come to 
exchanging and bartering of lots and conditions 
with those who are "at ease in Zion." I hold still 
my choice, and bless myself in it. I hope to go to 
eternity, and to venture on the last evil to the 
saints, even upon death, fully persuaded that this 
only, even this, is the saving way for wicked con- 
sciences, and for weary and laden sinners to find 
ease and peace for evermore in. 

We love well Summer religion, and to be that 
which sin has made us, even as thin-skinned as if 



The Cross and the Crown. 73 

we were made of white paper, and would fain be 
carried to heaven in a close-covered chariot, wishing 
from our hearts that Christ would give us surety 
and his hand-writing, and his seal for nothing but 
a fair Summer, until we be landed in at heaven's 
gates. 

Your Lord hath the pick and choice of ten 
thousand other crosses besides this, to exercise you 
withal ; but his wisdom and his love selected and 
chose out this for you besides them all ; and take it 
as a choice one and make use of it, so as you look 
to this world as your step-mother in your borrowed 
prison. For it is a love-look to heaven and the 
other side of the water that God seeketh ; and this 
is the fruit, the flower and bloom growing out of 
your cross, that you be a dead man to time, to clay, 
to gold, to country, to friends, wife, children, and all 
pieces of created nothings ; for in them is not a seat 
nor bottom for soul's love. 

You may judge how far all your now sad days, 
and tossings, changes, losses, wants, conflicts, shall 
then be below you. You look to the cross — now it 
is above your head, and seemeth to threaten death, 
as having a dominion ; but it shall then be so far 
below your thoughts, or your thoughts so far above 



74 A Garden of Spices. 

it, that you shall have no leisure to lend one thought 
to antiquated crosses, in youth, in age, in this coun- 
try, or in that, from this instrument or from another, 
except it be to the hightening of your consolation, 
being now got above and beyond all these. 

When his people can not 'have a providence of 
silk and roses, they must be content with such an 
one as he carveth out for them. You would not go 
to heaven but with company ; and you may per- 
ceive that the way of those who went before you 
was through blood, sufferings, and many afflictions : 
nay, Christ, the Captain, went in over the door- 
threshold of Paradise, bleeding to death. I do not 
think but you have learned to stoop, and that you 
have found that the apples and sweet fruits which 
grow on that crabbed tree of the cross are as sweet 
as it is sour to bear it ; especially considering that 
Christ hath borne the whole complete cross, and 
that his saints bear but bits and chips ; as the 
Apostle says, "the remnants, or bearings of the 
cross." 



The Cross and the Crown. 75 



THE W 'AY OF THE CROSS, THE WAY OF LIGHT: 



FROM THE GERMAN OF ROSEGARTEN. 



Through the cross comes the crown; when the cares of 
this life, 

Like giants in strength, may to crush thee combine, 
Never mind, never mind; after sorrow's sad strife 

Shall the peace and the crown of salvation be thine. 

Through woe comes delight; if at evening thou sigh, 
And thy soul still at midnight in sorrow appears, 

Never mind, never mind, for the morning is nigh 
Whose sunbeams of gladness shall dry up thy tears ! 

Through death comes our life ; to the portal of pain, 

Through time's thistle-fields, are our weary steps driven; 

Never mind, never mind, through this passage we gain 
The mansions of light and the portals of heaven. 



A Garden of Spices. 



The £ross and the Ijeart, 



[At Sorrento, Italy, is a curious poetical inscription engraved on a slab of marble 
inserted in the outer wall of a church. It begins and ends alternately with the 
Italian words for cross and heart. The following is said to be, as near ; 
a literal translation.] 



Cross, most adored, to thee I give my heart; 
Heart I have not, except to love thy cross. 
Cross, thou hast won my wayward, alien heart; 
Heart, thou hast owned the triumph of the cross. 
Cross, tree of life, to thee I nail my heart ; 
Heart can not live that lives not on the cross. 
Cross, be thy blood the cleaning of my heart ; 
Heart, be thy blood an offering to the cross. 
Cross, thou shalt have the homage of my heart; 
Heart, thou shalt be the temple of the cross. 
Cross, blessed is he who yields to thee his heart ; 
Heart, rest secure, thou cleavest to the cross. 
Cross, key of heaven, open every heart; 
Heart, every heart, receive the holy cross. 



The Cross and the Crown 77 



The Grass. 



Greater the cross the nearer heaven ; 
Godless to whom no cross is given ! 
The noisy world, in masquerade, 
Forgets the grave, the worm, the shade; 
Blessed is yon dearer child of God, 
On whom he lays his cross, the rod. 

Blessed by whom most the cross is known ; 
God whets us on his grinding-stone ; 
Full many a garden 's dressed in vain 
Where tears of sorrow never rain. 
In fiercest flames the gold is tried, 
In griefs the Christian 's purified. 

Midst crosses Faith her triumph knows ; 
The palm-tree pressed more vigorous grows ; 
Go, tread the grapes beneath thy feet, 
The stream that flows is full and sweet; 
In trouble virtues grow and shine 
Like pearls beneath the ocean brine. 

Crosses abound ; love seeks the skies ; 
Blow the rough winds, the flames arise ; 
When hopeless gloom the welkin shrouds, 
The sun comes laughing through the clouds 
The cross makes pure affection glow 
Like oil that on the fire we throw. 



7S A Garden of Spices. 

Who wears the cross prays oft and well ; 
Bruised herbs send forth the sweetest smell: 
Were ships ne'er tossed by stormy wind 
The pole-star who would care to find? 
Had David spent no darksome hours 
His sweetest song had ne'er been ours. 

From trouble springs the longing hope, 
From the deep vale we mount the slope; 
Who treads the desert's dreariest way 
For Canaan most will long and pray; 
Here finds the trembling dove no rest, 
Flies to the ark and builds her nest. 

Heavy the cross, e'en death is dear, 
The sufferer sings — his end is near; 
From sin and pain he bursts away, 
Trouble shall die that very day. 
The cross, yon silent grave adorning, 
Bespeaks a bright, triumphant morning. 

Greater the cross, the lovelier rays 
The crown prepared of God displays ; 
Treasure, by many a conqueror won 
Who wears it now before the throne. 
O, think upon that jewel fair 
And heaviest griefs are light as air 

Dear Lamb of God, enhance thy cross 
More and yet more ; all else is dross ; 
Let ne'er a murmur mar my rest, 
Plant thy own patience in my breast; 
To guard me faith, hope, love combine 
Until the glorious crown be mine. 



III. 



luffmtig for f tat. 



fJi^HEY are not worthy of Jesus who will not 
take a blow for their Master's sake. As for 
v our glorious Peace-maker, when he came to 
make up the friendship betwixt God and us, God 
bruised him, and struck him ; the world, also, did 
beat him and crucify him ; yet he took buffets of 
both the parties ; and — honor to our Lord Jesus — 
he would not leave the field for all that till he had 
made peace betwixt the parties. 

I pray for grace to learn to be acquainted with 
misery — if I may give so rough a name to such a 
mark of those who shall be crowned with Christ. 
And, howbeit, I may possibly prove a faint-hearted, 
unwise man in this, yet I dare to say that I intend 



So A Garden of Spices. 

otherwise ; and I desire not to go on the lee-side, 
or sunny-side of religion, to put truth betwixt me 
and a storm — my Savior did not so for me, who in 
his suffering took the windy side of the hill. 

If ye were not strangers here the dogs of the 
world would not bark at you. The world is one 
of the enemies that we have to fight with, but a 
vanquished and overcome enemy, and like a beaten 
and forlorn soldier ; for our Jesus hath taken the 
armor from it. You shall neither be free from the 
scourge of the tongue, nor of disgraces, even if it 
were buffeting and spitting upon the face, as was 
our Savior's case, if you follow Jesus Christ. 

Strokes with the sweet Mediator's hand are 
very sweet : he has always been sweet to my soul ; 
but since I suffered for him his breath has a sweeter 
smell than before. O that every hair of my head, 
and every member and every bone in my body, were 
a man to witness a fair confession for him ! I should 
think all too little for him. When I look over be- 
yond the line, and beyond death, to the laughing 
side of the world, I triumph and ride upon the high 
places of Jacob ; howbeit, otherwise, I am a faint, 
dead-hearted, cowardly man, often borne down, and 



Suffering for Christ. Si 

hungry in waiting for the marriage-supper of the 
Lamb! 

Suffering is the professor's golden garment ; 
there shall be no losses on Christ's side of it. 

But seeing a piece of suffering is carved to 
every one of us, less or more, as Infinite Wisdom 
hath thought good, our part is to harden and habit- 
uate our soft and thin-skinned nature to endure fire 
and water, devils, lions, men, losses, grieved hearts, 
as those that are looked upon by God, angels, men, 
and devils. 

Great men are dry and cold in doing for me ; 
the tinkling of chains for Christ affrighteth them ; 
but let my Lord break all my idols, I will yet bless 
him. 

I see that the Lord can ride through his enemies' 
hands, and triumph in the sufferings of his own ; 
and that this blind world seeth not that sufferings 
are Christ's armor, wherein he is victorious ; and 
they who contend with him see not what he is 
doing, when they arc set to work, as undcr-smiths 
and servants to this work of refining of the saints; 



S3 A Garden of Spices. 

and their office in God's house is to scour and 
cleanse vessels for the King's table. 

I have but small experience of suffering for 
him ; but let my Judge and Witness in heaven lay 
my soul in the balance of justice, if I find not a 
young heaven, a little paradise of glorious comforts 
and soul-delighting love kisses of Christ here be- 
neath the moon, in suffering for him and his truth ; 
and that the glory, joy, and peace, and fire of love, 
which I thought had been kept until supper-time, 
when we shall get leisure to feast our fill upon 
Christ, I have felt in glorious beginnings in my 
bonds for this princely Lord Jesus. 

I know that as night and shadows are good for 
flowers, and moonlight and dews are better than a 
continual sun, so is Christ's absence of special use, 
and that it hath some nourishing virtue in it, and 
giveth sap to humility, and putteth an edge on 
hunger, and furnisheth a fair field to faith to put 
forth itself, and to exercise its fingers in catching it 
seeth not what. 

I find that his sweet presence casteth out the 
bitterness of sorrow and suffering. I think it a 



Suffering for Christ. S3 

sweet thing that Christ saith of my cross, "Half 
mine ;" and that he divideth these sufferings with 
me, and taketh the larger share to himself; nay, 
that I and my whole cross are wholly Christ's. O 
what a portion is Christ ! O that the saints would 
dig deeper in the treasures of his wisdom and ex- 
cellency ! 

It should be enough to me, if I were wise, that 
Christ will have joy and sorrow halvers in the life 
of the saints, and that each of them should have a 
share in our days, as the night and day are kindly 
partners and halvers of time, and take it up betwixt 
them. But if sorrow be the greedier halver of our 
days here, I know that joy's day shall dawn, and do 
more than recompense all our sad hours. Let my 
Lord Jesus — since he willeth to do so — weave my 
bit and span-length of time with white and black, 
weal and woe, with the Bridegroom's coming and his 
sad departure, as warp and woof in one web ; and 
let the rose be neighbored with the thorn ; yet hope, 
that maketh not ashamed, hath written a letter and 
lines of hope to the mourners in Zion, that it shall 
not be long so. When we are over the water Christ 
shall cry down crosses, and up heaven for evermore ; 
and down hell, and down death, and down sin, and 



S4 A Garden of Spices. 

down sorrow ; and up glory, up life, up joy for ever- 
more. 

Our sufferings are washed in Christ's blood, as 
well as our souls ; for Christ's merits brought a 
blessing to the crosses of the sons of God. We are 
over the water some way already ; we are married, 
and our marriage -portion is paid ; we are already 
more than conquerors, " as dying, and behold we 
live." I never before heard of a living death, or a 
quick death, but ours : our death is not like the 
common death ; Christ's skill, his handiwork, and 
a new cast of Christ's admirable act, may be seen in 
our quick death. I bless the Lord that all our 
troubles come through Christ's fingers, and that he 
casteth sugar among them, and casteth in some 
ounce-weights of Heaven, and of the spirit of glory, 
that resteth on suffering believers, into one cup, in 
which there is no taste of hell. 

I hope you are not ignorant, that as peace was 
left to you in Christ's testament, so the other half 
of the testament was a legacy of Christ's sufferings. 
"These things I have spoken, that in me ye might 
have peace ; in the world ye shall have tribulation." 
Because, then, you are made assigns and heirs to a 



Suffering for Christ. S$ 

life-rent of Christ's cross, think that fiery trial no 
strange thing. 

Therefore, if my sufferings cry goodness, and 
praise, and honor upon Christ, my stipend is well 
paid. Boggle not at sufferings for Christ ; for Christ 
hath a chair, and a cushion, and sweet peace for a 
sufferer ; Christ's trencher from the first mess of the 
high table is for a sinful witness. O, then, brother, 
who but Christ! who but Christ! 

If you go to weigh Jesus, his sweetness, ex- 
cellency, glory, and beauty, and lay opposite to him 
your ounces, or drachms of suffering for him, you 
will be straitened in two ways: I. It will be a 
pain to make the comparison, the disproportion 
being by no understanding imaginable ; nay, if 
Heaven's arithmetic and angels were set to work 
they should never number the degrees of differ- 
ence. 2. It would straiten you to find a scale for 
the balance to lay that high and lofty One, that 
over-transcending Prince of Excellency in. If your 
mind could fancy as many created heavens as time 
hath had minutes, trees have had leaves, and clouds 
have had rain-drops, since the first stone of the 
creation was laid, they would not make half a 



S6 A Garden of Spices. 

scale in which to bear and weigh boundless ex- 
cellency. 

If the fellowship of Christ's sufferings were well 
known, who would not gladly take part with Jesus ? 
For Christ and we are halvers and joint-owners of 
one and the same cross ; and, therefore, he that 
knew well what sufferings were, did judge of them, 
that he might know " the fellowship of his suffer- 
ings." O, how sweet a sight is it to see a cross 
betwixt Christ and us ; to hear our Redeemer say, 
at every sigh and every blow, and every loss of a 
believer, "Half mine!" The heaviest end of the 
black tree of the cross lieth on your Lord ; it falleth 
first upon him, and it but reboundeth off him upon 
you. 

O what glory is it to be suffering objects for the 
Lord's glory and royalty ! Nay, though his servants 
had a body to burn forever for this Gospel, so being 
that the high glory of triumphing and exalted Jesus 
did rise out of these flames, and out of that burning 
body, O what a sweet fire ! O what soul-refreshing 
torment that would be ! What if the grains of dust 
and ashes of the burnt and dissolved body were 
musicians to sing his praises, and the highness 



Suffering for Christ. 87 

of that never-enough exalted Prince of ages ? 
what love is it in him that he will have such mu- 
sicians as we are to tune that psalm of his ever- 
lasting praise in heaven ! 

It were good to be armed beforehand for death 
or bodily tortures for Christ ; and to think what a 
crown of honor it is that God hath given you pieces 
of living clay, to be tortured witnesses for saving 
truth ; and that you are so happy as to have some 
pints of blood to give out for the crown of that royal 
Lord who hath caused you to avouch himself before 
men* 

Men have no more of you to work upon than 
some inches, and span-lengths of sick, coughing, 
and phlegmatic clay. Your souls, your love to 
Christ, your faith, can not be summoned, nor sen- 
tenced, nor accused, nor condemned, by Pope, 
deputy, prelate, ruler, or tyrant. Your faith is a 
free lord, and can not be a captive. All the malice 
of hell and earth can but hurt the scabbard of a 
believer ; and death, at the most, can get but a 

* This was written to Mr. Henry Stuart, his wife, and two daugh- 
ters — all prisoners of Christ at Dublin — 1640. 



88 A Garden of Spices. 

clay-pawn in keeping till your Lord make the 
king's keys, and open your graves. 

Your afflictions smell of the children's care. 
The children of the house are so nurtured ; and 
suffering is no new life, it is but the rent of the 
sons ; bastards have not so much of the rent. Stay 
and wait on till Christ loose the knAt that fasteneth 
his cross on your back ; for he is coming to deliver. 
This school of suffering is a preparation for the 
King's higher house. O happy and blessed death, 
that golden bridge laid over by Christ my Lord 
between time's clay banks and heaven's shore ! 

"But rejoice, inasmuch as ye are partakers of 
Christ's sufferings ;" in which sense the cup that 
his lip touched hath the sweeter taste, even though 
death were in it : the grave, because he did lie in it, 
is so much the softer, and the more refreshing, a 
bed of rest ; and that part of the sky and clouds 
that the Beloved shall break through and come to 
judgment is as lovely a piece of the created heaven 
as any is, if we may love the ground he goeth on 
the better — but all this is to be understood in a 
spiritual manner. 



Suffering for Christ. 89 



Christ haved*. tinsesn, hut not to&naum, 



Jesus, these eyes have never seen 

That valiant form of thine ! 
The vail of sense hangs dark between 

Thy blessed face and mine ! 

I see thee not, I hear thee not; 

Yet art thou oft with me ; 
And Earth hath ne'er so dear a spot 

As where I meet with thee. 

Like some bright dream, that comes unsought, 

When slumbers o'er me roll, 
Thine image ever fills my thought, 

And charms my ravished soul. 

Yet though I have not seen, and still 

Must rest in faith alone, 
I love thee, dearest Lord ! and will — 

Unseen, but not unknown. 

When death these mortal eyes shall seal, 

And still this throbbing heart, 
The rending vail shall thee reveal, 

All trlorious as thou art. 



IV. 



Ik Arid and rftofet. 




i OU will find, in Christianity, that God aim- 
eth, in all his dealings with his children, to 
bring them to a high contempt of, and 
deadly feud with the world ; and to set a high 
price upon Christ, and to think him one who can 
not be bought for gold, and well worthy the fight- 
ing for. And for no other cause doth the Lord 
withdraw from you the childish toys and the earthly 
delights that he giveth unto others, but that he 
may have you wholly to himself. 

O, alas! the greatest part of this world run to 
the place of that torment, rejoicing, and dancing, 
eating, drinking, and sleeping! Salvation, salva- 
tion ! fie upon this condemned and foolish world that 



The World and Christ. qi 

would give so little for salvation. 0, if there were 
a free market for salvation proclaimed in that day, 
when the trumpet of God shall awake the dead, how 
many buyers would be there? God, send me no 
more happiness than that Salvation which the 
blind world — to their eternal woe — letteth slip 
through their fingers. 

His breath is never so hot, his love casteth 
never such a flame as when this world, and those 
who should be the helpers of our joy, cast waters 
on our coal. It is a sweet thing to see them cast 
out, and God take in ; and to see them throw us 
away as the refuse of men, and God take us up as 
his jewels and treasures. 

O, that I could give up with this clay-idol, this 
masked, painted, over-gilded dirt that Adam's sons 
adore! We make an idol of our will. As many 
lusts in us, as many gods ; we are all god-makers ; 
we are all like to lose Christ, the true God, in the 
throng of these new and false gods. 

O, if this world knew the excellency, sweetness, 
and beauty of that high and lofty One, that fairest 
among the sons of men, verily they would see that 



92 A Garden of Spices. 

if their love were bigger than ten heavens — all in 
circles beyond each other — it were all too little for 
Christ, our Lord. I hope that your choice will not 
repent you, when life shall come to that twilight 
between time and eternity, and you shall see the 
utmost border of time, and shall draw the curtain, 
and look into eternity, and shall one day see God 
take the heavens in his hands and fold them to- 
gether like an old, worn-out garment, and set on 
fire this clay part of the creation of God, and con- 
sume away, into smoke and ashes, the idle hope of 
poor fools who think there is not a better country 
than this low country of dying clay. 

Alas, that we should be glad of and rejoice in 
our fetters and our prison-house, and this dear inn, 
a life of sin, when we are absent from our Lord, 
and so far from our home. O, that we could get 
bonds, and low suretyship of our love, that it fasten 
not itself on these clay-dreams, these clay-shadows, 
and worldly vanities! We might be oftener seeing 
what they are doing in heaven, and our hearts more 
frequently upon our sweet treasure above. We 
smell of the smoke of this lower house of the earth, 
because our hearts and our thoughts are here. If 
we could haunt up with God, we should smell of 



The World and Christ. 



93 



heaven, and of our country above, and we should 
look like our country, and like strangers or people 
not born or brought up hereaway. Our crosses 
would not leave their mark upon us if we were 
heavenly-minded. 

Put Christ's love to the trial, and put upon it 
our burdens, and then it will appear love indeed. 
We employ not his love, and, therefore, we know it 
not. I verily count the sufferings of my Lord 
more than this world's lustrous and over-gilded glory. 
I dare not say but my Lord Jesus hath fully rec- 
ompensed my sadness with his joys, my losses 
with his own presence. I find it a sweet and rich 
thing to exchange my sorrows with Christ's joys, 
my afflictions for that sweet peace I have with 
himself. 

This world is not worth a drink of cold water. 
O, but Christ's love casteth a great heat. Hell, 
and all the salt sea, and the rivers of the earth can 
not quench it. 

I am still welcome to his — Christ's — house. 
He knoweth my nook, and letteth in a poor friend. 
Under this black, rough tree of the cross of 
Christ, he hath ravished me with his love, and 



94 A Garden of Spices. 

taken my heart to heaven with him. Well and 
long may he enjoy it! I would not exchange 
Christ with all the joys that man or angel can 
devise beside him. Who hath such cause to speak 
honorably of Christ as I have? Christ is king of 
all crosses ; and he hath made his saints little kings 
under him ; and he can ride and triumph upon 
weaker bodies than I am — if any can be weaker — 
and his horse will neither fall nor stumble. 

For I think the men of this world, like children 
in a dangerous storm in the sea, that play and 
make sport with the white foam of the waves 
thereof, coming in to sink and drown them ; so are 
men making fool's sports with the white pleasures 
of a stormy world that will sink them. 

Nay, I think that this world, at its prime and 
perfection, when it is come to the top of its excel- 
lency, and to the bloom, might be bought with an 
half-penny ; and that it would scarce weigh the 
worth of a drink of water. There is nothing better 
than to esteem it our crucified idol that is dead and 
slain, as Paul did. Then let pleasures be crucified, 
and riches be crucified, and court and honor be cru- 
cified ; and twice the apostle saith the world is 
crucified to him. We may put this world to the 



The World and Christ. 95 

hanged man's doom, and to the gallows ; and whc 
will give much for a hanged man? And as little 
should we give for a hanged and crucified world. 

While you have time, look upon your papers, 
and consider your ways. O, that there were such 
an heart in you as to think what an ill conscience 
will be to you when you are upon the border of 
eternity, and your one foot out of time ! O, then, 
ten thousand thousand floods of tears can not ex- 
tinguish these flames, or purchase to you one 
hour's release from pain. You know that the 
world is but a shadow, a short, living creature, 
under the law of Time. Within less than fifty 
years, when you look back to it, you shall laugh at 
the vanishing vanities thereof, as feathers flying in 
the air, and as the houses of sand within the sea- 
mark, which the children of men are building. 

O, that there is so much spoken, and so much 
written, and so much thought of creature vanity; 
and so little spoken, so little written, and so little 
thought of my great and incomprehensible, and 
never-enough wondered at Lord Jesus ! Why 
should I not curse this forlorn and wretched world 
that suffereth my Lord Jesus to lie alone? O 



g6 A Garden of Spices. 

damned souls! O mistaken world! O blind, O 
beggarly and poor souls ! O bewitched fools ! what 
aileth you at Christ, that you run so from him? I 
dare not challenge Providence that there are so few 
buyers, and so little sale for such an excellent one 
as Christ. O, the depth, and O, the hight of my 
Lord's ways, that pass finding out! But O, that 
men would once be wise, and not fall so in love with 
their own hell, as to pass by Christ and not recog- 
nize him ! O, come, all, and drink at this living 
well ; come, drink, and live for evermore ; come, 
drink, and welcome! "Welcome," saith our fairest 
Bridegroom ; no man getteth Christ with ill-will ; 
no man cometh and is not welcome ; all men speak 
well of Christ who have been at him ; men and 
angels who know him will say more than I am able 
to, and think more of him than they can say. 

Oxe hour of this labor is worth a shipful of the 
world's drunken and muddy joy ; nay, even the way 
of heaven is the sunny side of the brae, and the 
very garden of the world ; for the men of this world 
have their own unchristened and profane crosses ; 
and woe be to them and their cursed crosses both ; 
for their ills are salted with God's vengeance, and 
our ills seasoned with our father's blessing ; so that 



The World and Christ. 97 

they are no fools who choose Christ, and sell all 
things for him ; it is no children's market, nor a 
blind bargain ; we know what we get and what we 
give. 

I think I have just reason to quit my part of 
any hope or love that I have to this scum, and the 
refuse of the dross of God's workmanship — this 
vain earth. I owe to this stormy world not a look ; 
I owe it no love, no hope ; and, therefore, O, that 
my love were dead to it, and my soul dead to it! 
What, am I obliged to this house of my pilgrim- 
age ! Seeing I am not this world's debtor, I de- 
sire that I may be stripped of all confidence in any 
thing but my Lord, that he may be for me, and I 
for my only, only, only Lord ; that he may be the 
morning and evening tide, the top and the root of 
my joys, and the heart, and flower, and yolk of all 
my soul's delights. 

If it come to voting among angels and men, 
how excellent and sweet Christ is, even in his re- 
proaches and in his cross ! I can not but vote with 
the first, that all that is in him, both cross and 
crown, pines and glooms, embracements and frown- 
ings, and strokes, are sweet and glorious. God, 
7 



9S A Garden of Spices. 

send me no more happiness in heaven, or out of 
heaven, than Christ ; for I find this world, when 
I have looked upon it on both sides, within and 
without, and where I have seen even the laughing 
and lovely side of it, to be but a fool's idol, a 
clay prison. 

O, what odds find the saints in hard trials when 
they feel sap at their roots, betwixt them and sun- 
burned, withered professors ! Crosses and storms 
cause them to cast their blooms and leaves. Poor 
worldlings, what will ye do, when the span-length 
of your forenoon's laughter is ended, and when the 
weeping side of Providence is turned to you? 

Mistaken grace, and somewhat like conversion, 
which is not conversion, is the saddest and most 
doleful thing in the world. Make sure of salvation, 
and lay the foundation sure, for many are beguiled. 
Put a low price upon the world's clay ; put a high 
price upon Christ. 

Worldly glory is nothing but a vapor, a 
shadow, the foam of the water, or something less, 
and lighter — even nothing. "The countenance 01 
fashion of this world passeth away. In which 



The World and Christ. 



99 



place our Lord compareth it to an image of a 
looking-glass, for it is the looking-glass of Adam's 
sons. Some come to this glass and see in it the 
picture of honor, and but a picture indeed, for true 
honor is to be great in the sight of God ; and 
others see in it the shadow of riches, and but a 
shadow indeed, for durable riches stand as one of 
the maids of wisdom upon the left hand ; and a 
third see in it the face of painted pleasures, and 
the beholders will not believe ; but the image which 
they see in this glass is a living man, till the Lord 
come and break the glass in pieces, and remove the 
face; and, then, like Pharaoh awakened, they say: 
" And behold it was a dream !" 

Christ is worth more than all the world's May- 
flowers, and withering riches, and honor, that shall 
go away as smoke, and vanish in a night vision, and 
shall, in one half hour after the blast of the arch- 
angel's trumpet, lie in white ashes. Let me beseech 
you, draw aside the lap of time's curtain, and look 
in through the window, to great and endless eter- 
nity, and consider if a worldly price — suppose this 
round, clay globe were all your own — can be given 
for one smile of Christ's godlike and soul-ravishing 
countenance, in that clay, when so many joints and 
knees of thousand thousands wailinc shall stand 



ioo A Garden of Spices. 

before Christ, trembling, shouting, and making their 
prayers to hills and mountains to fall upon them, 
and hide them from the face of the Lamb. 

Let the world be the portion of bastards, make 
it not yours ; after the last trumpet is blown, the 
world and all its glory will be like an old house that 
is burnt to ashes, and like an old fallen castle with- 
out a roof. Fie, fie upon us fools ! who think our- 
selves debtors to the world ! My Lord hath brought 
me to this, that I would not give a drink of cold 
water for this world's kindness. I wonder that men, 
long after, love or care for these feathers. It is 
almost a strange world to me, to think that men 
are so mad as to bargain with dead earth ; to give 
out conscience, and get in clay again, is a strange 
bargain. 



v. 



OUJ to 



<j<MT wore not wisdom for us to think that Christ 
j^SfJ an( i tne Gospel would come and sit down at 
our fireside ; nay, but we must go out of 
our warm houses, and seek Christ and his Gospel. 
It is not the sunny side of Christ that we must look 
to, and we must not forsake him for want of that ; 
but must set our face against what may befall us in 
following on, till he and we be through the briers 
and bushes, on the dry ground. Our soft natures 
would be borne through the troubles of this miser- 
able life in Christ's arms ; and it is his wisdom, who 
knoweth our soft mold, that his children go wet- 
shod and cold-footed to heaven. O how sweet a 
thins were it for us to learn to make our burdens 



102 A Garden of Spices. 

light, by framing our hearts to the burden, and 
making our Lord's will a law. 

I often told you that few are saved and many 
damned. I pray you to make your poor soul sure 
of salvation, and the seeking of heaven your daily 
task. If you never had a sick night and a pained 
soul for sin, you have not yet lighted upon Christ. 
Look to the right marks of having closed with 
Christ. If you love him better than the world, and 
would quit all the world for him, then that saith the 
work is sound. O if you saw the beauty of Jesus, 
and smelled the fragrance of his love, you would 
run through fire and water to be at him. 

I rejoice to hear that Christ hath run away with 
your young love, and that you are so early in the 
morning matched with such a Lord ; for a young 
man is often a dressed lodging for the devil to dwell 
in. Be humble and thankful for grace ; and weigh 
it not so much by weight as if it be true. 

We carry ourselves but too nicely with Christ 
our Lord ; and our Lord loveth not niceness, and 
reserve and dryness in friends. Since need-force 
that we must be under obligations to Christ, then 



Ho w to Seek Christ. 103 

let us be under obligation ; for it will be no other- 
wise. 

Remember that many go far on, and reform 
many things, and can find tears, as Esau did ; and 
suffer hunger for truth, as Judas did ; and wish and 
desire the end of the righteous, as Balaam did ; and 
profess fair, and fight for the Lord, as Saul did ; and 
desire the saints of God to pray for them, as Pharaoh 
and Simon Magus did ; and prophesy, and speak of 
Christ, as Caiaphas did ; and walk softly, and mourn 
for judgments, as Ahab did ; and put away your sins 
and idolatry, as Jehu did ; and hear the word of God 
gladly, and reform their life in many things, as 
Herod did; and say "Master" to Christ, "I will 
follow thee whither thou goest," as the man who 
offered to be Christ's servant ; and may taste of the 
virtues — or powers — of the world to come, and be 
partakers of the wonderful gifts of the Holy Ghost, 
and taste of the good word of God — and yet all 
these are but like gold in clink and color, and are 
plated silver and base metal. 

Seek the Lord while he may be found : the Lord 
vvaiteth upon you. Your soul is of no little price. 
Gold or silver of as much bounds as would cover 



icq A Garden of Spices. 

the highest heaven round about, can not buy it. To 
live as others do, and to be free of open sins, that 
the world crieth shame upon, will not bring you to 
heaven. 

A soul bleeding to death till Christ were sent 
for, and cried for in all haste, to come and stem the 
blood, and close up the hole in the wound with his 
own hand and balm, were a very good disease, when 
many are dying of a whole heart. We have all too 
little of hell-pain and terrors that way; nay, God 
send me such a hell as Christ hath promised to 
make a heaven of. Alas, I am not come so far on 
the way as to say in sad earnest, " Lord Jesus, great 
and sovereign physician, here is a pained patient for 
thee." But the thing that we mistake is the want 
of victory. We hold that to be the mark of one 
that hath no grace ; nay, say I, the want of fighting 
were a mark of no grace ; but I shall not say the 
want of victory is such a mark. 

Many are beguiled with this, that they are free 
of scandalous and crying abominations ; but the 
tree that bringeth not forth good fruit is for the 
fire ; the man that is not born again can not enter 
into the kingdom of God — common honesty will not 



How to Seek Christ. 105 

take men to heaven. Alas, that men should think 
that ever they met with Christ, who had never a 
sick night, through the terrors of God in their souls, 
or a sore heart for sin ! 

I want nothing but a back-burden of Christ's 
love — I would go through hell, and the throng of 
the damned devils, to have a hearty feast of Christ's 
love ; for he hath fettered me with his love, and 
run away, and left me a chained man. 

Every man hath conversion, and the new-birth ; 
but it is not lawfully attained — they had never a 
sick night for sin : conversion came to them in a 
night-dream. In a word, hell will be empty at the 
day of judgment, and heaven crammed full. Alas ! 
it is neither easy nor ordinary to believe and to be 
saved. Many must stand, in the end, at heaven's 
gates : when they go to take out their faith they 
take out a fair nothing, or an illusion. I pray you, 
in the name of Christ, make fast work of Christ 
and salvation. 

Christ must have honesty or nothing — but if 
you mean that he will have no service at all, where 
the heart draweth back in any measure, I would not 



106 A Garden of Spices. 

that were true, for my part of heaven, and all that I 
am worth in the world. If you mind to walk to 
heaven without a cramp or a halt, I fear that you 
must go alone. 

I pray you to dig deep. Christ's palace work, 
and his new dwelling, laid upon hell felt and feared, 
is most firm ; and heaven grounded and laid upon 
such a hell is surest work, and will not wash away 
with Winter storms. Many lay false and bastard 
foundations, and take up conversion at their foot, 
and get Christ for as good as half nothing, and had 
never a sick night for sin, and this maketh loose 
work. 

Hold on in feeling and bewailing your hard- 
ness ; for that is softness to feel hardness. Re- 
member faith is one thing, and the feeling and 
notice of faith another. I am sure you were not 
always actually knowing that you live ; yet all the 
time you are living : so it is with the life of faith. 



How to Seek Christ. 107 

Borne, fosus; and ^ome ^uijckl#. 

Jesus, I love ; come, dearest name ! 

Come, and possess this heart of mine. 
I love, though 't is a fainter flame, 

And infinitely less than thine. 

! if my Lord would leave the skies, 
Dressed in the rays of mildest grace, 

My soul would hasten to my eyes, 
To meet the pleasures of his face. 

How would I feast on all his charms, 

Then round his lovely feet intwine ! 
Worship and love in all their forms 

Should honor beauty so divine. 

In vain the tempter's flattering tongue; 

The world in vain should bid me move — 
In vain ; for I should gaze so long, 

Till I were all transformed to love. 

Then, mighty God ! I 'd sing and say, 

" What empty names are crowns and kings ! 

Among them give these worlds away, 
These little, despicable things." 

1 would not ask to climb the sky, 
Nor envy angels their abode: 

I have a heaven as bright and high 
In the blest vision of my God. 



VI. 




HERE is a degree in Christianity, to the 
which whosoever cometh they see and feel 
more than others can do. I invite you of 
new to come to him. "Come and see" will speak 
better things of him than I can do. "Come 
nearer" will say much. 

I verily think, now, that Christ hath led me up 
to a notch in Christianity that I was never at be- 
fore ; I think all before was but childhood and 
children's play. 

Either I know not what Christianity is, or we 
have stinted a measure of so many ounce-weights 
and no more upon holiness, and there we are at a 



The Higher Life. 109 

stand, drawing our breath all our life — a modera- 
tion in God's way, now, is much in request. I 
profess that I have never taken pains to find out 
him whom my soul loveth ; there is a way yet of 
finding out Christ that I have never lighted upon. 

that I could find it out! 

If you would be a deep divine, I recommend to 
you Sanctification. 

Sanctification will settle you most in the truth. 
O, his perfumed face, his fair face, his lovely and 
kindly kisses have made me a poor prisoner ; see that 
there is more to be had of Christ in this life than I 
had believed. We think all is but a little earnest, a 
slight afternoon refreshment, a small tasting which 
we have, or that is to be had in this life — which is 
true, compared with the inheritance — but yet, I 
know it is more, it is the kingdom of God within us. 

The King dineth with his prisoner, and his 
spikenard casteth a smell. He hath led me to 
such a pitch and degree of joyful communion with 
himself as I never knew before. When I look 
back to the things passed, I find myself to have 
been a child at A, B, C, with Christ. Pardon me, 

1 dare not conceal it from you, it is as a fire in my 



no A Garden of Spices. 

bowels in his presence who seeth me as I speak it. 
I am pained, pained with the love of Christ; he 
hath made me sick and mended me ; hunger for 
Christ outrunneth faith ; I miss faith more than love. 

I have now been led by my Lord Jesus to such 
a degree in Christianity, that 1 think but little of 
former things. O, what I want ! I want so many 
things that I am almost asking if I have any thing 
at all. Every man thinketh that he is rich enough 
in grace till he take out his purse and tell his 
money, and then he findeth his pack but poor and 
light in the day of a heavy trial. I found that I had 
not to bear my expenses, and I should have fainted 
if want and penury had not chased me to the store- 
house of all. 

I counsel you to study Sanctification, and to 
be dead to this world. 

Christ's love surroundeth and surchargeth me. 
I am burdened with it ; but, O, how sweet and 
lovely is that burden ! I can not keep it within me ; 
I am so in love with his love, that if his love were 
not in heaven, I should be unwilling to go thither. 
O what weighing and what blessing is in Christ's 



The Higher Life. hi 

love ! I fear nothing now so much as the laughing 
of Christ's cross, and the love-showers that accom- 
pany it. I wonder what he meaneth to put such a 
slave at the head of the table at his own elbow. 

Light, and the saving use of light, are far dif- 
ferent. O, what need, then, have I to have the 
ashes blown away from my dying-out fire! I may 
be a bookman, and be an idiot and stark fool in 
Christ's way. Learning will not beguile Christ. I 
doubt not but more would fetch heaven, if they be- 
lieved not heaven at the next door. The world's 
negative holiness maketh many believe they are 
already glorified saints ; but the sixth chapter to 
the Hebrews may affright us all when we hear that 
men may take of the gifts and common graces of 
the Holy Spirit, and a taste of the powers of the 
world to come, to hell with them. 

It is not jest nor sport which maketh me to 
speak and write as I do. I never before came to 
that degree or pitch of communion with Christ 
that I have now attained to. 

Now, I rejoice exceedingly that the Father of 
lights hath made you see that there is a degree in 



ii2 A Garden of Spices. 

Christianity which you contend to be at ; and that 
is to quit the right eye, and the right hand, and to 
keep the Son of God. 

Again, I wish no man to slander Christ or his 
cross for my cause ; for I have much cause to 
speak much good of him ; he hath brought me to 
a notch and degree of communion with himself 
that I knew not before. 

I have not lighted upon the right way of put- 
ting Christ to the bank, and making myself rich 
with him ; my misguiding and childish trafficking 
with that matchless pearl, that heaven's jewel, the 
jewel of the father's delights, hath put me to a 
great loss. O, that he would take a loan of me, 
and my stock, and put his name in all my bonds, 
and serve himself heir to the poor, mean portion 
which I have, and be accountable for the talent 
himself! 

I am in as sweet communion with Christ as a 
poor sinner can be ; and am only pained that he 
hath much beauty and fairness, and I little love ; he 
great power and mercy, and I little faith ; he much 
light, and I bleared eyes. O, that I saw him in the 



The Higher Life. 113 

sweetness of his love, and in his marriage clothes, 
and were over head and ears in love with that 
princely one, Christ Jesus, my Lord! Alas! my 
riven dish and running-out vessel can hold little of 
Christ Jesus ! 

I may, from new experience, speak of Christ to 
you. O, that you saw in him what I see ! A river 
of God's unseen joys hath flowed from bank to brae 
over my soul since I parted with you. I wish that 
I wanted part, so you might have : that your soul 
might be sick of' love for Christ, or rather satiated 
with him. 

Love, love — I mean Christ's love — is the hottest 
coal that ever I felt. O, but the smoke of it is 
hot ; cast all the salt sea on it, it will flame ! Hell 
can not quench it ; many, many waters will not 
quench love. Christ is turned over to his poor 
prisoner in a mass and globe of love ; I wonder that 
he should waste so much love upon such a waster 
as I am ; but he is no waster, but abundant in 
mercy. Free grace is an unknown thing. This 
world hath heard but a bare name of Christ, and 
no more. There are infinite plies in his love that 
the saints will never attain to unfold. 
8 



ii4 A Garden of Spices. 

Every one hath his set measure of faith and 
holiness, and contenteth himself with but a stinted 
measure of godliness, as if that were enough to 
bring him to heaven. We forget that, as our gifts 
and light grow, so God's gain and the interest of 
his talents should grow also ; and that we can not 
pay God with the old use and wont — as we used to 
speak — which we gave him seven years ago ; for this 
were to mock the Lord, and to make price with 
him as we list. O, what difficulty is there in our 
Christian journey! and how often come we short 
of many thousand things that are Christ's due! 
and we consider not how far our dear Lord is 
behind with us. 

Christ's comforts to me are not dealt with a 
niggard's hand, but I would fain learn not to idol- 
ize comfort, sense, joy, and sweet-felt presence. 
All these are but creatures, and nothing but the 
kingly robe, the gold ring, and the bracelets of the 
Bridegroom ; the bridegroom himself is better than 
all the ornaments that are about him. Now, I 
would not so much have these as God himself, and 
to be swallowed up of love to Christ. I see that 
in delighting in a communion with Christ, we may 
make more gods than one ; but, however, all was 



The Higher Life. 115 

mere child's play between Christ and me till now. 
If one would have sworn unto me, I would not 
have believed what may be found in Christ. 

I have now made a new question, Whether 
Christ be more to be loved for giving sanctification 
or for free justification ? And I hold that he is 
more and most to be loved for sanctification. It 
is, in some respects, greater love in him to sanctify 
than to justify ; for he maketh us most like himself 
in his own essential portraiture and image in sanc- 
tifying us. Justification doth but make us happy, 
which is to be like angels only ; neither is it such 
a misery to lie a condemned man, and under unfor- 
given guiltiness, as to serve sin, and work the works 
of the devil ; and, therefore, I think sanctification 
can not be bought, it is above price. God be 
thanked forever, that Christ was a told-down price 
for sanctification ! Let a sinner — if possible — lie in 
hell forever, if he make him truly holy, and let him 
lie there burning in love to God, rejoicing in the 
Holy Ghost, hanging upon Christ by faith and 
hope ; that is heaven in the heart of hell. 

Vi;kily, since I came to this prison, I have con- 
ceived a new and extraordinary opinion of Christ 



n6 A Garde at of Spices. 

which I had not before ; for I perceive we postpone 
all our joys of Christ, till he and we be in our own 
house above, as married parties, thinking there is 
nothing of it to be sought or found here but only 
hope and fair promises ; and that Christ will give us 
nothing here but tears, and sadness, and crosses ; 
and that we shall never feel the smell of the flowers 
of that high garden above, till we come there. Nay, 
but I find that it is possible to find young glory, and 
a young, green paradise of joy even here. I know 
that Christ's kisses will cast a more strong and re- 
freshing smell of incomparable glory and joy in 
heaven than they do here ; because a drink of the 
well of life up at the well's head is more sweet and 
fresh by far than that which we get in our borrowed, 
old, running-out vessel, and our wooden dishes here ; 
yet, I am now persuaded it is our folly to postpone 
all till the term-day, seeing abundance of earnest 
will not diminish any thing of our principal sum. 

O, that all the young heirs would seek more, and 
a greater and near communion with my Lord tutor, 
the prime heir of all, Christ ! 

Sanctified thoughts, thoughts made conscience 
of, and called in and kept in awe, and given fuel that 
burn not, and are a water for Satan's coal. Yet, I 



The Higher Life. 117 

must tell you that the whole saints, now triumphant 
in heaven, and standing before the throne, are noth- 
ing bui Christ's forlorn and beggarly bankrupts. 
What are they but a pack of redeemed sinners ? but 
their redemption is not only past the seals, but 
completed ; and yours is on the wheels, and in 
doing. 

Nothing, nothing, I say nothing but sound sanc- 
tification can abide the Lord's face. 

I know that there is more in Christ than would 
make me run over like a coastful sea. 

Try and search his Word, and strive to go a step 
above and beyond ordinary professors ; and resolve 
to sweat more and run faster than they do for sal- 
vation. Men's midday, cold, and wire pace to 
heaven will cause many a man to want his lodgings 
at night, and to lie in the fields. 

Alas ! it were easy to measure and weigh the 
love we have for Christ by inches and ounces ! 
Alas ! that we should love by measure and weight, 
and not rather have floods and feasts of Christ's 
love! O, that Christ would break down the old, 



n3 A Garden of Spices. 

narrow vessels of these narrow and shallow souls, 
and make fair, deep, wide, and broad souls, to hold 
a sea and a full tide flowing over all banks of 
Christ's love! 

I can say, by some little experience, more now 
than before of Christ to you. I am still upon this, 
that if you seek, there is a hoard, a hidden treas- 
ure, and a gold mine in Christ you never yet saw. 

I recommend to you holiness and sanctification, 
and that you keep yourself clean from this present 
evil world. 

But, if I have any love to him, Christ hath both 
love to me and wit to guide his love ; and I see that 
the best thing I have hath as much dross beside 
me as might curse me and it both ; and, if it were 
for no more, we have need of a Savior to pardon 
the very faults, and diseases, and weaknesses of the 
new man, and to take away — to say so — our godly 
sins, or the sins of our sanctification, and the dross 
and scum of spiritual love. 

Happy are they for evermore who can employ 
Christ, and set his blood and death on work, to 
make clean work to God of foul souls. I know that 



The Higher Life. 119 

it is our sin that would have sanctification on the 
sunny side of the hill, and holiness with nothing 
but Summer, and crosses not at all. Sin has made 
us as tender as if we were made of paper or glass. 

I think that I conceive new thoughts of heaven, 
because the chart and the map of heaven, which 
he letteth me now see, is so fair and so sweet. I 
am sure that we are niggards, and sparing bodies 
in seeking. I verily judge that we know not how 
much may be had in this life ; there is yet some- 
thing beyond all we see, that seeking would light 
upon. 

I think it is possible on earth to build a young, 
new Jerusalem, a little, new heaven of this surpass- 
ing love. God, either send me more of this love, 
or take me quickly over the water, where I may 
be filled with his love. 

New washing, renewed application of purchased 
redemption by that sacred blood that sealeth the 
free covenant, is a thing of daily and hourly use to 
a poor sinner. Till we be in heaven, one issue of 
blood shall not be quite dried up ; and, therefore, 
we must resolve to apply peace to our souls from 



120 A Garden of Sp/ces. 

the new and living way ; and Jesus — who cleanseth 
and cureth the leprous soul — lovely Jesus, must be 
our song on this side of heaven's gates ; and even 
when we have won the castle, then must we eter- 
nally sing, " Worthy, worthy is the Lamb who hath 
saved us, and washed us in his own blood." 

Sanctification and the mortification of our 
lusts are the hardest part of Christianity. It is, in 
a manner, as natural for us to leap when we see 
the new Jerusalem, as to laugh when we are 
tickled ; joy is not under command, nor at our nod 
when it kisseth : but O, how many of us would 
have Christ divided into two halves, that we might 
take the half of him only, and take his office — 
Jesus and salvation! but "Lord" is a cumbersome 
word, and to obey and work out our salvation and 
perfect holiness is the cumbersome and stormy 
north side of Christ, and that which we eschew 
and shift. 

I can say more of Christ now by experience — 
though he be infinitely above and beyond all that 
can be said of him — than when I saw you ; I am 
drowned over head and ears in his love. Sell, sell, 
sell all things for Christ ! If this whole world were 



The Higher Life. 121 

the beam of a balance it would not be able to bear 
the weight of Christ's love ; men and angels have 
short arms to fathom it. Set your feet upon this 
piece blue and base clay of an over-gilded and fair- 
plastered world ; an hour's kissing of Christ's is 
worth a world of worlds. 

I never believed, till now, that there was so 
much to be found in Christ, on this side of death 
and of heaven. O, the ravishments of heavenly joy 
that may be had here, in the small gleanings and 
comforts that fall from Christ! What fools are we 
who know not, and consider not the weight and 
telling that is in the very earnest penury, and the 
first-fruits of our hoped-for harvest ! How sweet, 
how sweet is our enfeofftment ! O, what then must 
personal precision be ! 

I will not smother nor conceal the kindness of 
my King Jesus. He hath broken in upon the poor 
prisoner's soul like the swelling of Jordan ! I am 
bank and brimful ; a great, high Spring-tide of the 
consolations of Christ hath overflowed me. They 
have sent me here to feast with my king. His 
spikenard casteth a sweet smell. The Bridegroom's 
love hath run away with my heart ; O, love, love, 



122 A Garden of Spices. 

love ! 0, sweet are my royal king's chains ! I 
care not for fire nor torture. How sweet were it 
to me, to swim the salt sea for my new lover, my 
second husband, my first Lord! 

My desire and purpose is, when Christ's honey- 
combs drop, neither to refuse to receive and feed 
upon his comforts, nor yet to make joy my bastard 
god, or my new-found heaven. I can not but 
laugh upon him who laugheth upon me. If joy 
and comforts come single and alone, without Christ 
himself, I would send them back again the way 
they came, and not make them welcome ; but, when 
the king's train cometh, and the king in the midst 
of the company O, how I am overjoyed with floods 
of love ! I fear not that too great deluges of love 
wash away the growing corn, and loose my plants 
at the roots. Christ doeth no harm when he com- 
eth. I would further in upon Christ, than at his 
joys. They but stand in the outer side of Christ ; 
I would wish to be in as a seal upon his heart ; in, 
where his love and mercy lodgeth beside his heart. 

Christ hath been keeping something these four- 
teen years for me, that I have now gotten in my 
heavy days that I am in for his name's sake ; even 



The Higher Life. . 123 

an opened coffer of perfumed comforts, and fresh 
joys, coming new, and green, and powerful, from 
the fairest, fairest face of Christ my Lord. Let the 
sour law, let crosses, let hell be cried down: love, 
love, hath shamed me of my old ways. Whether I 
have a race to run, or some work to do, I see not ; 
but I think Christ seemeth to leave heaven — to say 
so — and his court, and come down to laugh, and 
play, and sport with a foolish child. 

I am every way in your case, as hard-hearted, 
and as dead as any man ; but yet I speak to Christ 
through my sleep. 

Certainly, it is more than my part to say, " O, 
sweetest Lord Jesus, what, howbeit I were split and 
broken into five thousand shreds, or bits of clay, so 
being that every shred had a heart to love thee, and 
every one as many tongues as there are in heaven 
to sing praises unto thee, before men and angels 
for evermore !" 

O, to be a thousand fathoms deep in this sea 
of love ! He, he himself, is more excellent than 
heaven ; for heaven, as it cometh into the souls and 
spirits of the glorified, is but a creature ; and he is 



124 A Garden of Spices. 

something, and a great Something, more than a 
creature. O, what a life were it to set beside this 
Well of love, and drink and sing, and sing and 
drink ; and then to have desires and soul-faculties 
stretched and extended out many thousand fathoms 
in length and breadth, to take in seas and rivers of 
love ! 

Howbeit, our obedience be not sugared and 
sweetened with joy, yet, the less sense, and the 
more willingness in obeying, the less formality in 
our obedience ; howbeit, we think not so ; for I be- 
lieve that many think obedience formal and lifeless, 
except the wind be fair in the west, and sails filled 
with joy and sense, till souls, like a ship fair before 
the wind, can spread no more sail : but I am not of 
their mind who think so. 

If I were in your case I would borrow leave to 
come and stand upon the banks and coasts of that sea 
of love, and be a feasted soul, to see love's fair tide, 
free love's high and lofty waves, each of them highei 
than ten earths, flowing in upon pieces of lost clay. 
O, welcome, welcome, great sea ! O that I had as 
much love for wideness and breadth as twenty out- 
most shells and spheres of the heaven of heavens, 



The Higher Life. 125 

that I might receive in a little flood of his love! 
Come, come, dear friend, and be pained that the 
King's wine-cellar of free love, and his banqueting- 
house — O so wide, so stately! — O so God-like, so 
glory-like! — should be so abundant, so overflowing, 
and your shallow vessel so little, to take in some 
part of that love. But since it can not come into 
you, for want of room, enter yourself into this sea 
of love, and breathe under these waters, and die of 
love, and live as one dead and drowned of this love. 

O that I could let a lease of thousands of years, 
and a suspension of my part of heaven's glory, and 
postpone possession till a long day, qf my desired 
salvation, so being that I could, in this lower kitchen 
and under-vault of his creation, be feasted with his 
love, and that I might be a footstool to his glory 
before men and angels ! O that he would let out 
heaven's fountain upon withered me, dry and sapless 
me ! If I were but sick of love for his love — and 
O, how would that sickness delight me ! — how sweet 
should that easing and refreshing pain be to my 
soul! 

O, Plow sweet to be wholly Christ's, and wholly 
in Christ ! — to be out of the creature's owning, and 



i26 A Gardex of Spices. 

made complete in Christ — to live by faith in Christ, 
and to be once for all clothed with the created 
majesty and glory of the Son of God, wherein he 
maketh all his friends and followers sharers ; to 
dwell in Immanuel's high and blessed land, and live 
in that sweetest air, where no wind bloweth,but the 
breathings of the Holy Ghost ; no seas nor floods 
flow, but the pure waters of life, that proceedeth 
from under the throne, and from the Lamb ; no 
planting, but the tree of life, that yieldeth twelve 
manner of fruits every month ! 

Holiness is not Christ ; nor are the blossoms 
and flowers of the tree of life the tree itself. Men 
and creatures may wind themselves betwixt us and 
Christ ; and therefore the Lord hath done much to 
take out of the way all betwixt him and us. 

Our Lord handleth us as fathers do their young 
children. They lay up jewels in a place above the 
reach of the short arms of children, else the children 
would put up their hands and take them down and 
lose them soon. So hath our Lord done with our 
spiritual life. Jesus Christ is the high coffer, in the 
which our Lord hath hid our life : we children are 
not able to reach up our arm so high as to take 



The Higher Life. 127 

clown that life and lose it. It is in our Christ's 
hand. O, long, long may Jesus be lord-keeper of 
our life ! and happy are they that can with the 
apostle lay their soul in pawn in the hand of Jesus ; 
for he is able to keep that which is committed in 
pawn against that day. Then, so long as this life is 
not hurt, all other troubles are but touches in the 
heel. 

"My Well-beloved is mine, and I am his," is a 
sweet and glorious course of life, that none know 
but those who are sealed and marked in the fore- 
head with Christ's mark, and the new name that 
Christ writeth upon his own. 

O that we could wait for our hidden life! O 
that Christ would remove the covering, throw aside 
the curtain of time, and rend the heavens, and come 
down ! O that shadows and night were gone, that 
the day would break, and that he who feedeth 
among the lilies would cry to his heavenly trum- 
peters, "Make ready, let us go down and fold to- 
gether the four corners of the world, and marry the 
bride !" 

O what pains, and what a death it is to nature, 
to turn me, myself, my lust, my ease, my credit over 



12S A Garden of Spices. 

unto my Lord, my Savior, my King, and my God, 
my Lord's will, my Lord's grace ! What made 
Esau miscarry? and what hurried Eve headlong 
upon the forbidden fruit but that wretched thing, 
herself? What drew that brother-murderer to kill 
Abel? — that wild himself. What drove the Old 
W T orld on to corrupt their ways ? What but them- 
selves, and their own pleasures ? What was the 
cause of Solomon's falling into adultery and multi- 
plying of strange wives ? What but himself, whom 
he would rather pleasure than God ? What was 
the hook that took David and drawed him first in 
adultery, but his self-lust ; and then in murder, but 
his self-credit and self-honor? What led Peter on 
to deny his Lord ? Was it not a piece of himself, 
and self-love to a whole skin? What made Judas 
sell his Master for thirty pieces of money but a 
piece of self-love, idolizing of avaricious self? What 
made Demas go off the way of the Gospel to em- 
brace this present world ? Even self-love and love 
of gain for himself. Every man blameth the devil 
for his sins ; but the great devil, the house-devil of 
every man, the house-devil that eateth and lieth in 
every man's bosom, is that idol that killeth all — 
himself. O blessed are they who can deny them- 
selves, and put Christ in the room of themselves! 



The Higher Life. 129 

O would to the Lord that I had not a myself, but 
Christ ; not a my ease, but Christ ; not a my honor, 
but Christ ! O sweet Word ! " I live no more, but 
Christ liveth in me." O, if every one would put 
away himself — his own self — his own ease, his own 
pleasure, his own credit, and his own twenty things, 
his own hundred things, which he setteth up as 
idols above Christ ! 

Learn to put out yourselves, and to put in 
Christ for yourselves ; it would make a sweet barter- 
ing and exchanging, and give old for new, if I could 
shuffle out self, and substitute Christ, my Lord, in 
place of myself; to say, "Not I, but Christ; not m} 
will, but Christ's ; not my ease, not my lust, not my 
worthless credit, but Christ, Christ." O wretched 
idol, myself! when shall I see thee wholly discarded, 
and Christ wholly put in thy room ? O that Christ, 
Christ had the full place and room of myself! That 
all my aims, purposes, thoughts, and desires, would 
coast and land upon Christ, and not upon myself! 
and, howbeit, we can not attain to this denial of me 
and mine that we can say, "I am not myself; my- 
self is not myself; mine own is no longer mine 
own ;" yet our aiming at this in all we do shall be 
accepted. 

9 



130 A Garden of Spices. 

I hope I shall not need to show you that you are 
in greater hazard from yourself and your own spirit, 
which should be watched over — that your actings for 
God may be clean, spiritual, purely for God, for the 
prince of the Kings of the earth — than you can be 
in danger from your enemies. O, how hard it is 
to get the intentions so cut off from, and raised 
above the creature, as to be without mixture of 
creature and carnal interest, and to have the soul 
in heavenly acting, only eyeing himself, and act- 
ing from love to God, revealed to us in Jesus Christ. 
You will find yourself, your delights, your solid 
glory — far above the air and breathings of mouths, 
and the thin, short, poor applauses of men — before 
you in God. All the creatures, all the swords, all 
the hosts in Britain, and in this poor globe of the 
habitable world, are but under him single ciphers 
making no number of the product, being nothing 
but painted men, and painted swords in a board, 
without influence from him. 

You will take a low ebb, and a deep cut, and a 
long lance, to go to the bottom of your wounds, in 
saving humiliation, to make you a won prey for 
Christ. Be humbled ; walk softly ; down, clown, 
for God's sake, my dear and worthy brother, with 



The Higher Life. 131 

your top-sail ; stoop, stoop ! it is a low entry to go 
in at heaven's gate. 

I AM like a child that hath a gilded book that 
playeth with the ribbons, and the gilding, and the 
picture on the first page, but readeth not the con- 
tents of it. Certainly, if my desires to my well- 
beloved were fulfilled, I could provoke devils, and 
crosses, and the world, and temptations to the field ; 
but O, my poor weakness maketh me lie behind the 
bush and hide me! 

But, in all this sweet communion with him, what 
am I to be thanked for? I am but a sufferer. 
Whether I will or not, he will be kind to me as if 
he had defied my guiltiness to make him unkind, he 
so beareth his love on me. Here I die with won- 
dering that justice hindereth not love ; for there are 
none in hell or out of hell more unworthy of 
Christ's love. Shame may confound and frighten 
me once to hold up my black mouth to receive one 
of Christ's undeserved kisses. If my inner side 
were turned out and all men saw my vileness, they 
would say to me, "It is a shame for thee to stand 
still till Christ kiss thee, and embrace thee." It 
would seem to become me rather to run away from 



132 A Garden of Spices. 

his love, as ashamed at my own unworthiness ; nay, 
I may be ashamed to take heaven, who have so 
highly provoked my Lord Jesus ; but, seeing 
Christ's love will shame me, I am content to be 
ashamed. 

I have seen my abominable vileness ; if I were 
well known, there would be none in this kingdom 
to ask how I do. Many take my ten for a hund- 
red, but I am a deeper hypocrite and a shallower 
professor than every one believeth ; God knoweth 
I feign not. But, I think, my reckonings on the 
one page, written in great letters, and his mercy to 
such a wretched, forlorn, bankrupt on the other, to 
be more than a miracle. If I could be saved — as I 
would fain believe — sure I am that I have given 
Christ's blood, his free grace, and the bowels of his 
mercy, a large field to work upon, and Christ hath 
manifested his art, I dare not say to the uttermost; 
but, I say, to an admirable degree. 

We may blame ourselves who cause the law to 
crave well-paid debt, to scare us away from Jesus, 
and dispute about a righteousness of our own, a 
world in the moon, a chimera, and a night-dream, 
that pride is father and mother too. There can not 



The Higher Life. 133 

be a more humbled soul than a believer; it is no 
pride for a drowning man to catch hold of a rock. 

When I look to my guiltiness, I see that my sal- 
vation is one of our Savior's greatest miracles, 
either in heaven or earth ; I am sure I may defy 
any man to show me a greater wonder. 

I am laid low when I remember what I am, and 
that my outside casteth such a luster, when I find 
so little within. It is a wonder that Christ's glory 
is not defiled, running through such an impure and 
unclean channel. But I see Christ will be Christ 
in the dreg and refuse of men. His art, his shining 
wisdom, his beauty speak loudest in blackness, 
weakness, deadness ; yea, in nothing. I see noth- 
ing, no money, no worth, no good, no life, no de- 
serving is the ground that Omnipotency delighteth 
to draw glory out of. 

"You write to me," he says, "that elevated places 
arc slippery." I do not think my fondling would 
well still last, and that feasts will be my ordinary 
food. I would have humility, patience, and faith to 
set down both my feet when I come to the north 
side of the cold and thorny hill. It ill becomes me 



134 -4 Garden of Spices. 

to be reluctant to go an errand for Christ, and to 
take the wind upon my face for him. 

I find men have mistaken me ; it would be no 
art — as I now see — to spin fine, and make hypoc- 
risy seem a godly web, and go through the market 
as a saint among men, and yet steal gently to hell, 
without observation ; so easy is it to deceive men. 

It is now many years since the apostate angels 
made a question whether their will or the will of 
their Creator should be done ; and, since that time 
forward, mankind hath always, in that same suit of 
law, appeared to plead with them against God in 
daily repining against his will ; but the Lord, being 
both party and judge, hath obtained a decree, and 
saith, "My counsel shall stand, and I will do all my 
pleasure." It is, then, best for us, in the obedience 
of faith, and in a holy submission, to give that to 
God which his almighty and just power will have 
of us. 

I was once that I would make the house ado, if 
I saw not the world carved and set in order to my 
liking ; now, I am silent. I pray God that I may 
never find my will again. O, that Christ would 



The Higher Life. 135 

subject my will to his, and trample it under his feet, 
and liberate me from that lawless lord ! 

O, blessed soul! that could sacrifice his will, 
and go to heaven having lost his will, and made res- 
ignation of it to Christ ! I would seek no more 
than that Christ were absolute king over my will, 
and that my will were a sufferer in all crosses with- 
out meeting Christ with such a nod. "Why is it 
thus ?" 

Let not the Lord's dealing seem harsh, rough, or 
unfatherly, because it is unpleasant. When the 
Lord's blessed will bloweth across your desires, it is 
best, in humility, to strike sail to him, and to be will- 
ing to be led any way our Lord pleaseth. It is a 
point of denial of yourself to be as if you had not a 
will, but had made a free disposal of it to God, and 
had sold it over to him ; and to make use of his will 
for your own, is both true holiness, and your ease 
and peace ; you know not what the Lord is making 
out of this, but you shall know it hereafter. 

Let the only wise God alone, he steereth well ; 
he dravvcth straight, though we think and say they 
are crooked. It is right that some should die and 
their breasts full of milk ; and yet, we are angry 



136 A Garden of Spices. 

that God dealeth so with them. O, that I could 
adore him in his hidden ways, when there is dark- 
ness under his feet, and darkness in his pavilion, 
and clouds are about his throne! Hoping, believ- 
ing, patient praying is our life. He loseth no time ! 



"$.hid£ in Me, and $ in fou/' 



That mystic word of thine, O sovereign Lord ! 

Is all too pure, too high, too deep for me; 
Weary of striving, and with longing faint, 

I breathe it back again in prayer to thee. 

Abide in me, I pray, and I in thee : 

From this good hour, O ! leave me nevermore ; 

Then shall the discord cease, the wound be healed, 
The life-long bleeding of the soul be o'er. 

Abide in me; o'ershadow by thy love 

Each half-formed purpose and dark thought of sin; 
Quench ere it rise, each selfish, low desire ; 

And keep my soul as thine, calm and divine. 

As some rare perfume in a vase of clay 
Pervades it with a fragrance not its own, 

So, when thou dwellest in a mortal soul, 

All heaven's own sweetness seems around it thrown. 



The Higher Life. 137 

Abide in me. There have been moments blest 
When I have heard thy voice and felt thy power; 

Then evil lost its grasp ; and passion hushed, 
Owned the divine enchantment of the hour. 

These were but seasons beautiful and rare ; 

Abide in me, and they shall ever be : 
Fulfill at once thy precept and my prayer; 

Come, and abide in me, and I in thee. 

Harriet Bkechbr Stowh. 



The Hidden &ife. 



To tell the Savior all my wants, 

How pleasing is the task ! 
Nor less to praise him when he grants 

Beyond what I can ask. 

My laboring spirit vainly seeks 

To tell but half the joy ; 
With how much tenderness he speaks, 

And helps me to reply. 

Nor were it wise, nor should I choose, 

Such secrets to declare: 
Like precious wines, their taste they lose, 

Exposed to open air. 



f3S A Garden of Spices. 

But this with boldness I proclaim, 
Nor care if thousands hear ; 

Sweet is the ointment of his name : 
Nor life is half so dear. 

And can you frown, my former friends, 
Who knew what once I was, 

And blame the song that thus commends 
The man who bore the cross ? 

Trust me, I draw the likeness true. 

And not as fancy paints; 
Such honor may he give to you ! 

For such have all his saints. 



VII. 



Jtttferjford'a lute of Aolg tiring. 




HAT hours of the day, less or more time, 
for the Word and prayer, be given to God, 
not sparing the twelfth hour, or midday, 
hovvbeit it should then be the shorter time. 

i. In the midst of worldly employments there 
should be some thoughts of sin, death, judgment, 
and eternity, with a word or two at least of ejacu- 
latory prayer to God. 

2. To beware of wandering of heart in private 
prayer. 

3. Not to grudge, howbeit you come from prayer 
without sense of joy — down-casting, sense of guilti- 
ness, and hunger, are often best for us. 

4. That the Lord's day, from morning to night, 
be spent always cither in private or public worship. 



140 A Garden of Spices. 

5. That words be observed, wandering and idle 
thoughts be avoided, sudden anger and desire of 
revenge, even of such as persecute the truth, be 
guarded against ; for we often mix our zeal with our 
wild-fire. 

6. That known, discovered, and revealed sins, 
that are against the conscience, be eschewed, as 
most dangerous preparatives to hardness nf heart. 

7. That in dealing with men, faith and truth in 
covenants and trafficking be regarded ; that we deal 
with all men in sincerity ; that conscience be made 
of idle and lying words ; and that our carriage be 
such, as that they who see it, may speak honorably 
of our sweet Master and profession. 

things fobiclj $nmbleb pirn. 

1. Not refusing all to God, as the last end ; that 
I do not eat, drink, sleep, journey, speak and think 
for God. 

2. That I have not benefited by good company ; 
and that I left not some word of conviction, even 
upon natural and wicked men, as by reproving 
swearing in them, or because of being a silent wit- 
ness to their loose carriage, and because I intended 
not in all companies to do good. 



RUTHERFORD'S RULES OF HOLY LIVING. 141 

3. That the woes and calamities of the Church, 
and of particular professors, have not moved me. 

4. That at the reading the life of David, Paul, 
and the like, when it humbled me, I — coming far 
short of their holiness — labored not to imitate them, 
afar off at least, according to the measure of God's 
grace. 

5. That unrepented sins of youth were not 
looked to, and lamented for. 

6. That sudden stirrings of pride, lust, revenge, 
love of honors, were not resisted and mourned for. 
That my charity was cold. 

7. That the experiences I had, of God's hearing 
me, in this and the other particular, being gathered, 
yet, in a new trouble. I had always — once at least — 
my faith to seek, as if I were to begin at A B C 
again. 

8. That I have not more boldly contradicted the 
enemies speaking against the truth, either in public, 
or at tables, or ordinary conference. 

9. That in great troubles I have received false 
reports of Christ's love, and not believed aright in 
his chastening: whereas the event hath said, "All 
was in mercy." 

10. Nothing more moveth me, and depresseth 
my soul, than that I could never for my heart, in 



142 A Garden of Spices. 

my prosperity, so wrestle in prayer with God, nor 
be so dead to the world, so hungry and sick of love 
for Christ, so heavenly-minded, as when ten-stone 
weight of a heavy cross was upon me. 

ii. That the cross extorted vows of new obedi- 
ence, which ease hath blown away, as chaff before 
the wind. 

12. That practice was so short and narrow, and 
light so long and broad. 

13. That death hath not been often meditated 
upon. 

14. That I have not been careful of gaining 
others to Christ. 

15. That my grace and gifts bring forth little 
or no thankfulness. 

(L&bat gibeb jpim. 

1. I have benefited by riding alone a long 
journey, in giving that time to prayer. 

2. By abstinence, in giving days to God. 

3. By praying for others ; for by making an 
errand to God for them I have gotten something 
for myself. 

4. I have been really confirmed, in many par- 
ticulars, that God heareth prayer; and therefore I 



RUTHERFORD'S RULES OF HOLY LIVING. 143 

used to pray for any thing of how little importance 
soever. 

5. He enabled me to make no question that this 
mocked way, which is nicknamed, is the only way 
to heaven. 

O, we are little with God! and do all without 
God ! We sleep and wake without him : we eat, we 
speak, we journey, we go about worldly business, 
and our calling without God! 'And, considering 
what deadness is upon the hearts of many, it were 
good that some did not pray without God, and 
preach and praise, and read and confer of God, 
without God. 



Thtj W\\\ be Bans. 



My Jesus, as thou wilt! 

may thy will be mine ! 
Into thy hand of love 

1 would my all resign. 
Through sorrow, or through joy, 

Conduct me as thine own, 
And help me still to say, 
My Lord, thy will be done ! 



i44 A Garden of Spices. 

My Jesus, as thou wilt ! 

If needy here and poor, 
Give me thy people's bread, 

Their portion rich and sure. 
The manna of thy word 

Let my soul feed upon ; 
And if all else should fail, 

My Lord, thy will be done. 

My Jesus, as thou wilt ! 

If among thorns I go, 
Still sometimes here and there 

Let a few roses blow. 
But thou on earth along 

The thorny path hast gone ; 
Then lead me after thee, 

My Lord, thy will be done. 

My Jesus, as thou wilt ! 

Though seen through many a tear, 
Let not my star of hope 

Grow dim, or disappear. 
Since thou on earth hast wept 

And sorrowed oft, alone, 
If I must weep with thee, 

My Lord, thy will be done ! 

My Jesus, as thou wilt ! 

If loved ones must depart, 
Suffer not sorrow's flood 

To overwhelm my heart. 



RUTHERFORD'S RULES OF HOLY LIVING. 145 

For they are blest with thee ; 

Their race and conflict won, 
Let me but follow them ; 

My Lord, thy will be done ! 

My Jesus, as thou wilt ! 

When death itself draws nigh, 
To thy dear wounded side 

I would for refuge fly : 
Leaning on thee, to go 

Where thou before hast gone : 
The rest as thou shalt please. 

My Lord, thy will be done. 

My Jesus, as thou wilt ! 

All shall be well for me : 
Each changing future scene 

I gladly trust with thee. 
Straight to my home above 

I travel calmly on, 
And sing, in life or death, 

My Lord, thy will be done. 

SCHMUCK. 
IO 



VIII. 



|k |ses 0f Jjiiriion. 




Ji^O you who are in trouble there are some 
chapters, some particular promises in the 
Word of God, made in a most especial 
manner, which should never have been yours, so as 
they now are, if you had your portion in this life as 
others have ; and, therefore, all the comforts, prom- 
ises, and mercies which God ofiereth to the afflicted 
are as so many love-letters written to you. Take 
them to you, and claim your right, and be not 
robbed. It is no small comfort that God hath 
written some Scriptures to you which he hath not 
written to others : you seem rather, in this, to be 
envied than pitied ; and you are, indeed, in this like 
people of another world, and those that are above 
the ordinary rank of mankind, whom our King and 



The Uses of Affliction. 



'47 



Lord, our Bridegroom Jesus, in his love-letter to his 
well-beloved Spouse, hath named beside all the 
rest, and hath written comforts and his hearty com- 
mendation. 

I am taught in this ill-weather to go on the lee- 
side of Christ, and to put him in between me and 
the storm. I thank God I walk on the sunny side 
of the brae. 

O what sweet comfort, what rich salvation, are 
laid up for those who had rather wash and roll their 
garments in their own blood than break out from 
Christ by apostasy ! 

My burden was once so heavy that one ounce- 
weight would have cast the balance, and broken my 
back ; but Christ said, " Hold, hold ! " to my sorrow, 
and hath wiped a blurred eye which was foul with 
weeping. I may joyfully go my Lord's errands, with 
wages in my hands. 

Intrust not your comforts to men's airy and 
frothy applause, neither lay your down-castings on 
the tongues of bitter mockers and reproaches of 
godliness. God hath called you to Christ's side, 



14S A Garden of Spices. 

and seeing you are with him, you can not expect the 
lee-side, or the sunny side of the brae. 

He hath made all his promises good to me, and 
hath the most warm, sheltered, and comfortable 
position— filled up all the blanks with his own hand. 
I would not exchange my bonds with the plastered 
joys of this whole world. It hath pleased him to 
make a sinner, the like of me, an ordinary banqueter 
in his house of wine, with that royal, princely One, 
Christ Jesus. O what weighing! O what telling- 
is in his love! How sweet must he be when that 
black and burdensome tree, his own cross, is so per- 
fumed with joy and gladness ! 

Christ's honeycombs drop honey and floods of 
consolation upon my soul ; my chains are gold ; 
Christ's cross is all over-gilded and perfumed; his 
prison is the garden and orchard of my delights ; 
I would go through burning quick to my lovely 
Christ; I sleep in his arms all the night, and my 
head betwixt his breasts: my well-beloved is alto- 
gether lovely— this is all nothing to that which my 
soul has felt. If my stipend, place, country, credit, 
had been an earldom, a kingdom, ten kingdoms, and 
a whole earth, all were too little for the crown and 



The Uses of Affliction. 149 

scepter of my royal King. Mine enemies, mine 
enemies have made me blessed. They have sent 
me to the Bridegroom's chamber. Love is his 
banner over me. I live a king's life. I want noth- 
ing but heaven, and possession of the crown ; my 



I see many professors, for the sake of appear- 
ance, follow on ; but they are professors of glass. 
I would cause a little knock of persecution break 
them in twenty pieces, and so the world would 
laugh at the shreds. Therefore make fast work. 
See that Christ lay the foundation of your profes- 
sion ; for wind, and rain, and floods, will not wash 
away his building. I should twenty times have per- 
ished in my affliction if I had not leaned my weak 
back and laid my pressing burden both upon this 
stone, the Foundation-stone, the corner-stone laid 
in Zion ; and I desire never to rise off this stone. 

If your Lord call you to suffering be not dis- 
mayed ; there shall be a new allowance of the King 
for you when you come to it. One of the softest 
pillows Christ hath is laid under his witnesses' head, 
though often they must set down their bare-feet 
among thorns. He hath brought my poor soul to 



150 A Garden of Spices. 

desire and wish, O that my ashes, and the powder 
I shall be dissolved into, had well-tuned tongues to 
praise him ! 

I never find myself nearer Christ, that royal 
and princely One, than after a great sense and 
weight of deadness and gracelessness. I think that 
the sense of our wants, when withal we have a rest- 
lessness, and a sort of spiritual impatience under 
them, and can make a din, because we want Him 
whom our soul loveth, is that which maketh an open 
door to Christ ; and when we think we are going 
backward, because we feel deadness, we are going 
forward ; for the more sense the more life ; and no 
sense argueth no life. There is no sweeter fellow- 
ship with Christ than to bring our wounds and our 
sores to him. 

I find my prison the sweetest place that ever I 
was in. My Lord Jesus is kind to me, and hath 
taken the mask off his face, and is content to quit 
me of all matters by-past. 

Nature's plastering and counterfeit he doth 
often break in shreds, and putteth out a candle not 
lighted at the Sun of Righteousness ; but he must 



The Uses of Affliction. 151 

cherish his own reeds, and handle them softly ; 
never a reed getteth a thrust with the Mediator's 
hand to lay together the two ends of the reed. O, 
what bands and ligaments hath our chirurgeon of 
broken spirits to bind up all his lame and bruised 
ones with ! Cast your disjointed spirit into his 
lap ; and lay your burden upon one who is so will- 
ing to take your cares and your fears off you, and 
to exchange and barter your crosses, and to give 
you new for old, and gold for iron — even to give 
you garments of praise for the spirit of heaviness. 

There is no way of quieting the mind, and of 
silencing the heart of a mother — on the loss of her 
child — but godly submission. The readiest way for 
peace and consolation to clay-vessels is, that it is a 
stroke of the potter and former of all things ; and 
since the holy Lord hath loosed the hold, when it 
was fastened sure on your part. I know that your 
light, and I hope that your heart also, will yield. 
It is not safe to be at pulling and drawing with the 
omnipotent Lord. Let the pull go with him, for he 
is strong; and say, "Thy will be done!" 

O what owe I to the file, to the hammer, to 
the furnace of my Lord Jesus ! Grace tried is bet- 



152 A Garden of Spices. 

ter than grace, and it is more than grace : it is glory 
in its infancy. Who knoweth the truth of grace 
without a trial? And how soon would faith freeze 
without a cross ! How man)- dumb crosses have 
been laid upon my back that had never a tongue to 
speak the sweetness of Christ as this hath ! When 
Christ blesseth his own crosses with a tongue, they 
breathe out Christ's love, wisdom, kindness, and 
care of us. Why should I start at the plow of my 
Lord, that maketh deep furrows in my soul? I 
know that he is no idle husbandman, he purposeth 



But Christ knoweth what to make of them — 
crosses, sorrow, loss, sadness, death — and can so 
connect himself with the cross, that we shall be 
obliged to affliction, and thank God, who taught us 
to make our acquaintance with such a rough com- 
panion who can lead us to Christ. 

O, it is a pity that there were not many impris- 
oned for Christ, were it for no other purpose than to 
write books and love-songs of the love of Christ ! 

I feared that I was cast over the dike of the 
vineyard as a dry tree. But, blessed be his great 



The Uses of Affliction. 153 

name, the dry tree was in the fire and was not 
burnt : his dew came down and quickened the root 
of a withered plant, and now he is come again with 
'oy, and hath been pleased to feast his exiled and 
afflicted prisoner with the joy of his consolations. 
Now, I weep, but am riot sad ; I am chastened, but 
I die not ; I have loss, but I want nothing ; this 
water can not drown me, this fire can not burn 
me, because of the good-will of him who dwelt in 
the bush. 

The dross of my cross gathereth a scum of fears 
in the fire, doubting, impatience, unbelief, accusa- 
tions of Providence as sleeping, and as not regard- 
ing my sorrow ; but, my goldsmith, Christ, was 
pleased to take off the scum, and burn it in the 
fire. And, blessed be my refiner, he hath made 
the metal better, and furnished new supply of 
grace to cause me to hold out weight ; and I hope 
he hath not lost one grain-weight by burning his 
servant. 

I find it to be most true that the greatest 
temptation out of hell is to live without tempta- 
tions. If my waters should stand, they would rot. 
Faith is the better of the free air, and of the sharp, 



i54 A Garden of Spices. 

Winter storm in its face. Grace withereth without, 
adversity. The devil is but God's master-fencer, to 
teach us to handle our weapons. 

I have some experience to write of this to you. 
My witness is in heaven, that I would not exchange 
my chains and bonds for Christ, and my sighs, for 
ten worlds' glory. 

Our husband doeth well in breaking our idols 
to pieces ; dry wells send us to the fountain. 

I never knew, by my nine years' preaching, so 
much of Christ's love, as he has taught me in 
Aberdeen,* by six months' imprisonment. He hath 
made to know now, better than before, what it is 
to be crucified to the world. 

O, O, I AM convinced, O Lord, I stand dumb 
before thee for this ; let me be my own judge in 
this, and I take a dreadful doom upon me for it ; 
for I do not still believe aright, though I have seen 
that my Lord hath made my cross as if it were all 
crystal, so as I can see through it Christ's fair face 
and heaven, and that God hath honored a lump of 

* The place to which he was banished. 



The Uses of Affliction. 155 

sinful flesh and blood, the like of me, to be Christ's 
honorable lord-prisoner. I ought to esteem the 
walls of the thieves' hole — if I were shut up in it — 
or any stinking dungeon, all hung with tapestry, 
and most beautiful for my Lord Jesus. 

But my Lord, in his sweet visits, hath done 
more ; for he maketh me to find that he will be 
a confined prisoner with me. He lieth down and 
riseth up with me ; when I sigh, he sigheth ; when 
I weep, he suffereth with me ; and I confess that 
here is the blessed issue of my sufferings, already 
begun, that my heart is filled with hunger, and de- 
sire to have him glorified in my sufferings. 

I believe that when Christ draweth blood, he 
hath skill to cut the right vein ; and that he hath 
taken the whole ordering and disposing of my suf- 
ferings. Let him tutor me, and tutor my crosses, 
as he thinketh good. 

I find that my extremity hath sharpened the 
edge of his love and kindness, so that he seemeth 
to desire new ways of expressing the sweetness of 
his love to my soul. Suffering for Christ is the 
very element wherein Christ's love liveth, and exer- 
ciseth itself in casting out flames of fire, and sparks 



156 A Garden of Spices. 

of heat to warm such a frozen heart as I have ; and 
if Christ, weeping in .sackcloth, be so sweet, I can 
not find any imaginable thoughts to think what he 
will be when we clay-bodies — having put off mortal- 
ity — shall come up to the marriage-hall and great 
palace, and behold the king clothed in his robes 
royal, sitting on his throne ! 

Losses and crosses are the wheels of Christ's 
triumphing chariot. In the sufferings of his own 
saints, as he intendeth their good, so he intendeth 
his own glory, and that is the butt his arrows shoot 
at ; and Christ shooteth not at random, he hitteth 
what he purposeth to hit. What harder stuff or 
harder grain for thrashing out than high and 
rocky mountains ; but the saints are God's thrash- 
ing instruments to beat them all into chaff. Are 
we not God's earthen vessels? and yet, when they 
cast us over an house we are not broken into 
shreds. We creep in under our Lord's wings in 
the great shower, and the water can not come 
through those wings. 

I know that Christ bought with his own blood 
a right to sanctified and blessed crosses, in as far as 
they blow me over the water to my long-desired 



The Uses of Affliction. 157 

home ; and it were not good that Christ should be 
the buyer and I the seller. I know that time and 
death shall take sufferings fairly off my hand. I 
hope we shall have an honest parting at night, when 
this cold and frosty afternoon-tide of my evil and 
rough day shall be over. 

The glancing of the furnace is to let you see 
what scum or refuse you must want, and what froth 
is in nature that must be boiled out, and taken off 
in the fire of your trials. I do not say that heavier 
afflictions prophesy heavier guiltiness ; a cross is 
often but a false prophet of this kind ; but I am sure 
that our Lord would have the tin and the bastard 
metal in you renewed. 

It is much to come out of the Lord's school of 
trial wiser and more experienced in the ways of 
God, and it is our happiness when Christ openeth 
a vein that he taketh nothing but ill blood from his 
sick ones. Christ hath skill to do, and, if our con- 
ceptions mar not, the art of mercy in correcting. 
We can not, of ourselves, take away the tin, the 
lead, and the scum that rcmaineth in us ; and if 
Christ be not master of work, and if the furnace go 
I))' itself alone — he not standing by the melting of 



158 A Garden of Spices. 

his own vessel — the labor were lost, and the founder 
should melt in vain. God knoweth some of us 
have lost much fire, sweating, and pains to our 
Lord Jesus ; and the vessel is almost marred, the 
furnace and rod of God spoiled, and daylight burnt, 
and the reprobate metal not taken away, so as some 
are to answer to the majesty of God for the abuse 
of many good crosses, and rich afflictions lost with- 
out the quiet fruit of righteousness ; and it is a sad 
thing when the rod is cursed that never fruit shall 
grow on it. And except Christ's dew fall down, and 
his Summer sun shine, and his grace follow afflic- 
tions, to cause them to bring forth fruit to God, 
they are so fruitless to us that our evil ground — 
rank and fat enough for briers — casteth up a crop 
of noisome weeds. 



Fellowship in Suffering, 



Humbly while my soul doth prove, 
Sweetest joys of pardoning love, 
Still, my Savior, doth it yearn 
Love's deep mystery to learn ; 
In the shadow of thy cross, 
Counting earthly gain but loss, 



The Uses of Affliction. 759 

Breathing still its fervent plea 
For a closer life with thee, 
By that high and holy thing: 
Fellowship in suffering. 

O, my Lord, the crucified, 
Who for love of me hast died, 
Mold me by thy living breath 
To the likeness of thy death ! 
While the thorns thy brow entwine, 
Let no flower-wreath rest on mine. 
In thy hands the cruel nail, 
Blood-sweat on thy forehead pale — 
Clasp me to thy wounded side, 
O, my Lord, the crucified! 

Hands love-clasped through charmed hours. 

Feet that press the bruised flowers, 

Is there naught for you to dare, 

That ye may his signet wear? 

In this easy, painless life, 

Free from struggle, care, and strife, 

Ever on my doubting breast 

Lies the shadow of unrest ; 

This no path that Jesus trod — 

Can the smooth way lead to God ? 

But when chastening strifes descend, 
Welcoming as friend doth friend, 
Thy dear tokens, Lord, I know, 
And to thee unerring go. 
Blessed tears flow warm and free, 
Thou dost love me, even me. 



160 A Garden of Spices. 

Pomp, and ease, and praise of men. 
All are loathed and scorned then, 
Since, my Lord, my love hath died, 
Mocked, and scourged, and crucified. 

By the agony and pain 
Of the torture-stricken brain, 
By the riches of thy love, 
Let not suffering barren prove ! 
Pledge and emblem 'twould remain, 
Of the dark and sullen pain, 
Where nor love, nor God doth live, 
And the blessed word, forgive, 
Comes not with its subtile art, 
Softening, healing any heart. 

In the little islet, Time, 

Of eternity sublime, 

Standing on the sloping brink, 

Let me of thy chalice drink, 

Be baptized with thy baptism, 

And be crowned with thy love-chrism. 

Slain with thee in darkest hour, 

Feel thy resurrection's power, 

Till where thou art I may be 

Perfected, dear Lord, with thee. 



IX. 



I 



sritl and Vmnmcz 




IE believing, die with Christ's promise in 
your hand. Faith hath cause to take 
courage from our very afflictions: the 
devil is but a whetstone to sharpen the faith and 
patience of the saints. I know that he but heweth 
and polisheth stones all this time for the New 
Jerusalem. 

Duties are ours ; events are the Lord's. When 
our faith goeth to meddle with events, and to hold a 
court — if I may so speak — upon God's providence, 
and beginneth to say, " How wilt thou do this and 
that?" we lose ground. We have nothing to do 
there. It is our part to let the Almighty exercise 
his own office, and steer his own helm. There is 
ii • 



1 62 A Garden of Spices. 

nothing left to us but to see how we may be ap- 
proved of him, and how we may roll the weight 
of our weak souls in well-doing upon him, who is 
God Omnipotent ; and when what we thus essay 
miscarrieth, it will neither be our sin nor cross. 

Faith may dance because Christ singeth ; and 
we may come into the choir, and lift our hoarse and 
rough voices, and chirp, and sing, and shout for joy 
with our Lord Jesus. We see oxen go to the 
shambles leaping and running: we see God's fed 
oxen, prepared for the day of slaughter, go dancing 
and singing down to the black chambers of hell ; 
and why should we go to heaven weeping as if we 
were to fall down through the earth for sorrow? 
If God were dead — if I may speak so with reverence 
to him who liveth forever and ever — and Christ 
buried and rotten among the worms, we might have 
cause to look like dead folks ;, but " the Lord liveth, 
and blessed be the rock of our salvation." None 
have right to joy but we ; for joy is sorrow for us, 
and an ill Summer or harvest will not spoil the cross. 

I find it hard to believe, when the course of 
Providence goeth cross-wise to our faith, and when 
bewildered souls, in a dark night, can not know east 



Faith and Assurance. 163 

by west, and our sea-compass seemeth to fail us. 
Every man is a believer in daylight — a fair day 
seemeth to be made all of faith and hope. What a 
trial of gold is it to smoke it a little above the fire ? 
But to keep gold perfectly yellow-colored amidst the 
flames, and to be turned from vessel to vessel, and 
yet to cause our furnace to sound, and speak, and 
cry the praises of the Lord, is another matter. I 
know that my Lord made me not for fire ; howbeit 
he hath fitted me, in some manner, for the fire. I 
bless his high name that I wax not paler, neither 
have I lost the color of gold, and that his fire hath 
me somewhat fluid, and that my Lord may pour me 
into any vessel he pleaseth. 

And your fault is just mine, that I can not be- 
lieve my Lord's bare and naked word. I must either 
have an apple to play me with, and shake hands with 
Christ, and have real security, and witness to his 
ward, or else I count myself loose ; howbeit, I have 
the word and faith of a king. O, I am made of 
unbelief, and can not swim but where my feet touch 
the ground ! Alas, Christ is presented to me under 
my temptations as lying waters, as a bankrupt and 
a cozener! We can make such a Christ, as tempt- 
ations casting us in a night-dream, do feign and 



164 A Garden of Spices. 

desire ; and temptations represent Christ ever unlike 
himself, and we, in our folly, listen to the tempter. 

Make meikle — much — of assurance, for it keepeth 
your anchor fixed. 

A question may be, "If after assurance and 
mortification, the children of God be ordinarily fed 
with sense and joy?" I answer, I see no incon- 
venience to think it is enough, in a race, to see 
the gold at the starting-place ; howbeit the runners 
never get a view of it till they come to the race's 
end. Yet I judge it not unlawful to seek renewed 
consolations, providing, 1. The heart be submissive 
and content to leave the measure and timing of 
them to him. 2. Providing they be sought to excite 
us to praise, and strengthen our assurance, and 
sharpen our desires after himself. 3. Let them be 
sought, not for our humors or swelling of nature, 
but as the earnest of heaven ; and I think many 
do attain to greater consolations after mortification 
than ever they had formerly. 

Be content to wade through the waters betwixt 
you and glory with him, holding his right hand 
fast ; for he knoweth all the fords. Howbeit you 



Faith and Assurance. 165 

may be ducked, yet you can not drown, being in 
his company ; and you may, all the way to glory, 
see the way bedewed with his blood, who is the 
Forerunner. Be not afraid, therefore, when you 
come to the black and swelling river of death, to 
put in your feet and wade after him. The current, 
how strong soever, can not carry you down the 
water to hell : the death and resurrection of the Son 
of God are stepping-stones and a stay to you ; set 
down your feet by faith upon these stones, and go 
through as on dry land. 

Think not much of short summons : when Christ 
cometh for his own he runneth fast: mercy, mercy 
to the saints goeth not at leisure : love, love in our 
Redeemer is not slow, and, withal, he is familiar 
with you, who cometh at his own hand to your 
house, and intermeddleth as a friend with every 
thing that is yours. 

Providence hath a thousand keys to open a 
thousand sundry doors for the deliverance of his 
own, when it is even come to a desperate case. 
Let us be faithful ; and care for our own part, which 
is to do and suffer for him, and lay Christ's part on 
himself, and leave it there. 



i66 A Garden of Spices. 

The end of his counsel and working lieth hid- 
den and underneath the ground ; and, therefore, we 
can not believe. Even amongst men, we see hewn 
stones, timber, and an hundred scattered parcels 
and pieces of an house, all lesser tools, hammers, 
and axes, and saws ; yet the house, the beauty and 
ease of so many lodgings and rooms for repose, we 
neither see nor understand for the present : these 
are but in the mind and head of the builder as 
yet. We see red earth, unbroken clods, furrows 
and stones ; but we see not Summer lilies, roses, 
and the beauty of a garden. If you give the Lord 
time to work — as often he that believeth not maketh 
haste, but not speed — his end is under ground, and 
you shall see that it was for your good. 



"It is I; be not &fraid." 



Tossed with rough winds, and faint with fear, 
Above the tempest, soft and clear, 
What still small accents greet mine ear ? 
'T is I ; be not afraid. 



Faith and Assurance. 167 

'Tis I, who led thy steps aright; 
'T is I, who gave thy blind eyes sight ; 
'T is I, thy Lord, thy Life, thy Light; 
'T is I; be not afraid. 

These raging winds, this surging sea, 
Bear not a breath of wrath to thee ; 
That storm has all been spent on me. 
'Tis I; be not afraid. 

The bitter cup fear not to drink ; 
I know it well — O ! do not shrink ; 
I tasted it o'er Kedron's brink; 

'T is I; be not afraid. 

Mine eyes are watching by thy bed, 
Mine arms are underneath thy head, 
My blessing is around thee shed ; 

'T is I; be not afraid. 

When on the other side thy feet 
Shall rest 'mid thousand welcomes sweet, 
One well-known voice thy heart shall greet ; 
'T is I; be not afraid. 

From out the dazzling Majesty, 
Gently he'll lay his hand on thee, 
Whispering, "Beloved, lovest thou me?" 
'T was not in vain I died for thee ; 

'T is I; be not afraid. 



Ifa JJmtster'ij lop and Jjorrmua. 



.i 




SEE exceedingly small fruit of my ministry, 
and would be glad to know of one soul to 
be my crown of rejoicing in the day of 
Christ. Though I spend my strength in vain, yet 
my labor is with my God. I wish and pray that 
the Lord would harden my face against all, and 
make me to learn to go with my face against the 
storm. 

It is — I know by experience — hard to keep sight 
of God in a storm, especially when he hideth him- 
self for the trial of his children. Grieved is my 
heart that I have done so little against the kingdom 
of Satan in my calling ; for he would fain attempt to 
make me blaspheme God to his face. I believe, I 



The Minister's Joys and Sorrows. 169 

believe in the strength of him who hath put me into 
his work, that he — Satan — shall fail in that he seek- 
eth. I have comfort in this, that my captain Christ 
hath said I must fight and overcome the world ; and 
with a weak, spoiled, and weaponless devil. "The 
Prince of this world cometh, and hath nothing 
in me." 

Temptations that I supposed to be stricken 
dead and laid upon their back, rise again, and revive 
upon me ; yea, I see that, while I live, temptations 
will not die. The devil seemeth to brag and boast 
as much as if he had more court with Christ than I 
have ; and as if he had charmed and blasted my 
ministry, that I shall do no more good in public ; 
but this wind shaketh no corn. 

It were my heaven, till I come home, even to 
spend this life in gathering in some to Christ. 

O that he who quickeneth the dead would give 
life to my sinning among you ! What joy is there — 
next to Christ — that standeth on this side of death, 
which would comfort me more than that the souls 
of that poor people were in safety, and beyond all 
hazard of being lost! 



170 A Garden of Spices. 

I am grieved that I am making Christ not a 
friend, by seeking accusations against him, because 
I am the first in the kingdom put to utter silence ; 
and because I can not preach my Lord's righteous- 
ness in the great congregation. 

that I could buy your soul's salvation with 
any suffering whatsoever, and that you and I might 
meet with joy up in the rainbow, when we shall 
stand before the Judge ! O, my Lord, forbid that I 
have any thing in witness against you in that day ! 

1 would postpone heaven for many years to 
have my fill of Jesus in this life, and to have occa- 
sion to offer Christ to my people, and to woo many 
people to Christ. 

O, how my soul will mourn in secret if my nine 
years' pained head, and aching breast, and pained 
back, and grieved heart, and private and public 
prayers to God, will all be for nothing among that 
people! Did my Lord Jesus send me but to sum- 
mon you before your judge, and to leave you sum- 
mons at your houses ? Was I sent as a witness 
only to gather your indictments ? O, may God 
forbid ! 



The Minister's Joys and Sorrows. 171 

I persuade you, my dear brother, that there is 
nothing out of heaven — next to Christ — dearer to 
me than my ministry ; and the worth of it, in my 
estimation, is swelled, and paineth me exceedingly ; 
yet I am content, for the honor of my Lord, to sur- 
render it back again to the Lord of the vineyard ; let 
him do with it and me both what he thinketh good ; 
I think myself too little for him. 

I had one joy out of heaven, next to Christ my 
Lord, and that was to preach him to this faithless 
generation ; and they have taken that from me ; it 
was to me as the poor man's one eye, and they have 
put out that eye. 

What could I want if my ministry among you 
should make a marriage between the little bride in 
those bounds and the Bridegroom? O, how rich a 
prisoner were I if I could obtain of my Lord the 
salvation of you all! O, what a prey I had gotten 
to have you catched in Christ's net! O, then, I 
had cast out my Lord's lines and his net with a 
rich gain ! O, then, well-expended, pained breast, 
and sore back, and crazed body, in speaking early 
and late to you! My witness is above; your heaven 
would be tivo heavens to vie, and the salvation of you 



172 A Garden of Spices. 

all as two salvations to mc. I would subscribe a 
suspension and a postponement of my heaven for 
many hundred years — according to God's good 
pleasure — if you were sure in the upper lodging, in 
our father's home, before me. 

O, if I might but speak to thee or your herd- 
boys of my worthy Master, I would be satisfied to 
be the meanest and most obscure of all the pastors 
in this land, and to live in any place, in any of 
Christ's basest outhouses. 

Pray for my flock. There I wrestled with the 
angel and prevailed. Wood, trees, meadows, and 
hills are my witnesses that I drew on a fair meeting 
betwixt Christ and Anworth. 

My removal from my flock is so heavy to me 
that it maketh my life a burden to me ; I had never 
such a longing for death. The Lord help and hold 
up sad clay! 

Let me die within half an hour after I have seen 
the temple of the Son of God enlarged, and the 
cords of Jerusalem's tent lengthened to take in a 
more numerous company for a bride to the Son of 



The Minister's Joys and Sorrows. 173 

God. O, that the corner, or foundation-stone of 
that house, that new house, were laid above my 



There is a salvation, called "the salvation of 
God," which is cleanly, pure, spiritual, unmixed, near 
to the Holy Word of God ; it is that which we 
would seek, even the favor of God that he beareth 
to his people ; not simple gladness, but the gladness 
and goodness of the Lord's chosen. And sure — 
though I be the weakest of his witnesses, and un- 
worthy to be among the meanest of them, and am 
afraid that the cause be hurt, but it can not be lost 
by my unbelieving faintness — I would not desire a 
deliverance separated from the deliverance of the 
Lord's cause and people. It is enough to me to 
sing when Zion singeth ; and to triumph when 
Christ triumpheth. I should judge it an unhappy 
joy to rejoice when Zion sigheth. 



XI. 



|k |i<te of |r« I 



•-• nracc. 



S 1T 

jyi AM heartily sorry that your ladyship is de- 
f I! prived of such a husband, and the Lord's 
Kirk of so active and faithful a friend. I 
know your ladyship long ago made acquaintance 
with that, wherein Christ will have you to be joined 
in a fellowship with himself, even with his own 
cross ; and hath taught you to stay your soul upon 
the Lord's good-will, who giveth not account of his 
matters to any of us. When he hath led you through 
this water that was in your way to glory, there are 
fewer behind ; and his order in dismissing us, and 
sending us out of the market, one before another, 
is to be reverenced. One year's time of heaven 
shall swallow up all sorrows, even beyond all com- 
parison. What, then, will not a duration of bless- 



The Riches of Free Grace. 175 

edness, so long as God shall live, fully and abund- 
antly recompense? It is good that our Lord hath 
given a debtor, obliged by gracious promises, far 
more in eternity than time can take from you. 
And I believe that your ladyship hath been now 
many years advising and thinking what that glory 
will be, which is abiding the pilgrims and strangers 
on the earth, when they come home, and which we 
may think of, love and thirst for, but we can not 
comprehend it nor conceive of it as it is, far less can 
we over-think or over-love it. O, so long a chap- 
ter, or rather so long a volume as Christ is, in that 
divinity of glory! There is no more of him let 
down now, to be seen and enjoyed by his children, 
than as much as may feed hunger in this life, but 
not satisfy it. Your ladyship is a debtor to the 
Son of God's cross, that is wearing out love and 
affiance in the creature, out of your heart by de- 
grees ; or rather the obligation standeth to his free 
grace who careth for your ladyship in this gracious 
dispensation ; and who is preparing and making 
ready the garments of salvation for you ; and who 
calleth you with a new name, that the mouth of the 
Lord hath named ; and purposeth to make you a 
crown of glory, and a royal diadem in the hand of 
your God. Ye are obliged to postpone to him 



T76 A Garden of Spices. 

more than one heaven; and yet he craveth not a 
long day ; it is fast coming, and is sure payment. 
Though ye gave no hire for him, yet hath he given 
a great price and ransom for you : and if the bar- 
gain were to make again, Christ would give no less 
for you than what he hath already given — he is far 
from rueing. I shall wish you no more, till time 
be gone out of the way, than the earnest of that 
which he hath purchased and prepared for you; 
which can never be fully preached, written, or 
thought of since it has not extended into the heart 
to consider it. 

And be content, and withal greedily covetous of 
grace, the interest and pledge of glory. 

I see there is a necessity that we protest against 
the doings of the Old Man, and raise up a party 
against our worst half, to accuse, condemn, sentence, 
and with sorrow bemoan the dominion of sin's king- 
dom ; and withal make law, in the New Covenant, 
against our guiltiness; for Christ once condemned 
sin in the flesh, and we are to condemn it over 
again. And if there had not been such a thing as 
the grace of Jesus, I should have long since given 
up with heaven, and with the expectation to see 



The Riches of Free Grace. 177 

God. But grace, grace, free grace, the merits of 
Christ for nothing, white and fair, and large Savior- 
mercy — which is another sort of thing than crea- 
ture-mercy, or law mercy ; yea, a thousand degrees 
above angel-mercy — have been, and must be, the 
rock that we drowned souls must swim to. New 
washing, renewed application of purchased redemp- 
tion, by that sacred blood that sealeth the free cov- 
enant, is a thing of daily and hourly use to a poor 
sinner. Till we be in heaven our issue of blood 
shall not be quite dried up ; and, therefore, we 
must resolve to apply peace to our souls from the 
new and living way ; and Jesus — who cleanseth and 
cureth the leprous soul — lovely Jesus, must be our 
song on this side of heaven's gates ; and even when 
we have won the castle, then must we eternally 
sing, " Worthy, worthy is the Lamb, who hath saved 
us, and washed us in his own blood." 

Ye must be content to give Christ somewhat to 
do. I am glad that he is employed that way. Let 
your bleeding soul and your sores be put in the 
hand of this expert physician ; let young and strong 
corruptions and his free grace be yoked together, 
and let Christ and your sins deal it betwixt them. 
I shall be loth to put off your fears, and your sense 



17S A Garden of Spices. 

of deadness — I wish it were more — there be some 
wounds of that nature, that their bleeding should 
not be soon stopped. You must take a house be- 
side the physician. It will be a miracle if ye be 
the first sick man whom he put away uncured, and 
worse than he found you. 

I wish all professors to fall in love with grace. 
All our songs should be of his free grace. We are 
but too lazy and careless in seeking of it ; it is all our 
riches we have here, and glory in the bud. I wish 
that I could set out free grace. I was the law's 
man, and under the law, and under a curse ; but 
grace brought me from under that hard lord, and I 
rejoice that I am grace's freeholder. I pay tribute 
to none for heaven, seeing my land and heritage 
holdeth of Christ, my new king. Infinite wisdom 
hath devised this excellent way of free-holding for 
sinners. It is a better way to heaven than the old 
way that was in Adam's days. 

If there was not a fountain of free grace to wa- 
ter dry ground, and an uncreated wind to breathe 
on withered and dry bones, we were gone. The 
wheels of Christ's chariot to pluck us out of the 
womb of many deaths, are winged like eagles. All 



The Riches of Free Grace. 179 

I have is to desire to believe that Christ will show 
all good-will to save ; and, as for your ladyship, I 
know that our Lord Jesus carrieth on no design 
against you, but seeketh to save and redeem you. 
He lieth not in wait for your falls, except it be to 
take you up. His way of redeeming is ravishing 
and taking ; there are more miracles of glorified sin- 
ners in heaven than can be on earth. Nothing of 
you, madam, nay, not even your leaf, can wither. 

I conceive that Christ hath a great design of 
free grace to these lands ; but his wheels must 
move over mountains and rocks. He never yet 
wooed a bride on earth but in blood, in fire, and in 
the wilderness. A cross of our own choosing, hon- 
eyed and sugared with consolations, we can not 
have. I think not much of a cross, when all the 
children of the house weep with me and for me ; 
and to suffer when we enjoy the communion of the 
saints, is not much ; but it is hard when saints 
rejoice in the suffering of saints, and redeemed 
ones hurt ; yea, even go nigh to hate redeemed ones. 

I confess I imagined there had no more been 
such an affliction on earth or in the world as that 
one elect angel should fight against another ; but, 
for contempt of the communion of saints, we have 



i So A Garden of Spices. 

need of new-born crosses, scarce ever heard of be- 
fore. The saints are not Christ ; there is no mis- 
judging in him, there is much in us ; and a doubt it 
is if we shall have fully one heart till we shall 
enjoy one heaven. 

Therefore, worthy lady, so count little of your- 
self, because of your own wretchedness and sinful 
drowsiness, that ye count not also little of God in 
the course of his unchangeable mercy ; for there be 
many Christians, most like unto young sailors, who 
think the shore and the whole land do move, when 
the ship and they themselves are moved ; just so, 
not a few do imagine that God moveth, and saileth, 
and changeth places, because their giddy souls are 
under sail, and subject to alternation, to ebbing and 
flowing — but the foundation of the Lord abideth 
sure. God knoweth that ye are his own. Wrestle, 
fight, go forward, watch, fear, believe, pray ; and 
then ye have all the infallible symptoms of one of 
the elect of Christ within you. 

If God has given you the earnest of the Spirit, 
as part of payment of God's principal sum, ye have 
to rejoice ; for our Lord will not lose his earnest, 
neither will he go back nor repent him of the 



The Riches of Free Grace. iSi 

bargain. If ye find, at some time, a longing to see 
God, joy in the assurance of that sight, howbeit that 
feast be but like the Passover, that cometh about 
only once a year. Peace of conscience, liberty of 
prayer, the doors of God's treasure thrown open to 
the soul, and a clear sight of himself looking out, 
and saying, with a smiling countenance, "Welcome 
to me, afflicted soul," this is the earnest that he 
giveth sometimes, and which maketh glad the heart, 
and is an evidence that the bargain will hold. 

I must say, the saints have a sweet life between 
them and Christ. There is much sweet solace of 
love between him and them, when he feedeth among 
the lilies, and cometh into his garden, and maketh 
a feast of honeycombs, and drinketh his wine and 
his milk, and crieth, " Eat, O Friends ; drink, yea, 
drink abundantly, O Well-beloved." One hour of 
this labor is worth a shipful of the world's drunken 
and muddy joy: nay, even the gate of heaven is 
the sunny side of the brae, and the very garden of 
the world ; for the men of this world have their own 
unchristened and profane crosses ; and woe be to 
them and their cursed crosses both; for their ills 
arc salted with God's vengeance, and our ills sea- 
soned with our Father's blessing: so that they are 



1 82 A Garden of Spices. 

no fools who choose Christ, and sell all things for 
him ; it is no bairn's market, nor a blind bargain ; 
we know well what we get, and what we give. 

There can not be a more humble soul than a 
believer ; it is no pride for a drowning man to catch 
hold of a rock. 

Ye may put a difference betwixt you and repro- 
bates, if ye have these marks: i. If ye prize Christ 
and his truth so as ye will sell ali and buy him, 
and suffer for it. 2. If the love of Christ keepeth 
you back from sinning, more than the law, or fear 
of hell. 3. If ye be humble, and deny your own 
will, wit, credit, ease, honor, the world, and the 
vanity and glory of it. 4. Your profession must , 
not be barren and void of good works. 5. Ye must 
in all things aim at God's honor ; ye must eat, drink, 
sleep, buy, sell, sit, stand, speak, pray, read, and hear 
the Word, with a heart-purpose that God may be 
honored. 6. Ye must show yourself an enemy to 
sin, and reprove the works of darkness, such as 
drunkenness, swearing, and lying, albeit the com- 
pany should hate you for so doing. 7. Keep in 
mind the truth of God, that ye heard me teach, and 
have nothing to do with the corruptions and new 



The Riches of Free Grace. 1S3 

guises entered into the house of God. 8. Make 
conscience of your calling, in covenants, in buying 
and selling. 9. Acquaint yourself with daily pray- 
ing ; commit all your ways and actions to God, by 
prayer, supplication, and thanksgiving ; and count 
not much of being mocked ; for Christ Jesus was 
mocked before you. 

Faith's eyes, that can see through a mill-stone, 
can see through a frown of God, and under it read 
God's thoughts of love and peace. 

Understanding, a little after the writing of my 
last letter, of the going of this bearer, I would not 
omit the opportunity of remembering your Lady- 
ship, still harping upon that string which, in our 
whole lifetime, is never too often touched upon, nor 
is our lesson well enough learned, that there is a 
necessity of advancing in the way to the Kingdom 
of God, of the contempt of the world, of denying 
ourself, and of bearing of our Lord's cross ; which 
is no less needful for us than daily food. And 
among many marks that we are on this journey, 
and under sail toward heaven, this is one, when the 
love of God so filleth our hearts that we forget to 
love and care too much for the having or wanting 



1S4 A Garden of Spices. 

of other things ; as one extreme heat burnetii out 
another. By this, madam, ye know that ye have 
betrothed your soul in marriage to Christ, when ye 
do make but small reckoning of all other suitors or 
wooers, and when ye can — having little in hand, but 
much in hope — live as a young heir during the time 
of his nonage and minority, being content to be as 
hardly handled, and under as precise a reckoning as 
servants, because his hope is upon the inheritance. 
For this cause God's children take well with the 
spoiling of their goods, knowing in themselves that 
they have in heaven a better and an enduring sub- 
stance. That day that the earth and the works 
therein shall be burned with fire, your hidden hope 
and your hidden life shall appear. And, therefore, 
since ye have not now many years of your endless 
eternity, and know not how soon the sky above your 
head shall rive, and the Son of Man be seen in the 
clouds of heaven, what better and wiser course can 
ye take than to think that your one foot is here, and 
your other foot in the life to come, and to leave off 
loving, desiring, or grieving for the wants that shall 
be made up, when your Lord and ye shall meet, and 
when ye shall give in your bill that day of all your 
wants here ? If your losses be not made up, ye 
have place to accuse the Almighty ; but it shall not 



The Riches of Free Grace. 185 

be so. Ye shall then rejoice with joy unspeakable 
and full of glory, and your joy shall none take from 
you. 

Dear Lady, I am afraid of prevailing security. 
We watch little — I have relation mainly to myself — 
we wrestle little. I am like one traveling in the 
night who seeth a spirit, and sweateth for fear, and 
dareth not to tell it to his fellow for fear of increas- 
ing his own fear. However, I am sure, when the 
Master is nigh his coming, it were safe to write over 
a double and a new copy of our accounts of the sins 
of nature, childhood, youth, riper years, and old age. 
What if Christ have another written representation 
of me than I have of myself — sure he is right — and 
if it contradict my mistaking and sinfully erroneous 
account of myself, ah! where am I then? But, 
madam, I discourage none ; I know that Christ 
hath made a new marriage-contract of love, and 
scaled it with his blood, and the trembling believer 
shall not be confounded. 

Madam, a stronger than I am had almost stum- 
bled me and cast me down ; but, O, what mercy is 
it to discern between what is Christ's and what is 
man's, and what way the hue, color, and luster of 



1S6 A Garden of Spices. 

gifts of grace dazzle and deceive our weak eyes ! O, 
to be dead to all things that are below Christ, were 
it even a created heaven and created grace ! Holi- 
ness is not Christ ; nor are the blossoms and flowers 
of the Tree of life the tree itself. Men and creatures 
may wind themselves between us and Christ ; and, 
therefore, the Lord hath done much to take out of 
the way all betwixt him and us. There are not in 
our way now kings, nor armies, nor nobles, nor judi- 
catories, nor strongholds, nor watchmen, nor godly 
professors. The fairest things, and most eminent 
in Britain, are stained, and have lost their luster; 
only, only Christ keepeth his greenness and beauty, 
and remaineth what he was. 

Ye hold that Christ must either have hearty 
service, or no service at all. If ye mean that he 
will not halve a heart, or have feigned service, such 
as the hypocrites give him, I grant you that — Christ 
must have honesty or nothing — but if ye mean he 
will have no service at all, where the heart draweth 
back in any measure, I would not that were true, for 
my part of heaven, and all that I am worth in the 
world. If ye mind to walk to heaven, without a 
cramp or a halt, I fear that ye must go alone. He 
knoweth our dross and defects ; and sweet Jesus 



The Riches of Free Grace. 187 

pitieth us, when weakness and deadness in our obe- 
dience is our cross, and not our darling. 

Ye live not upon men's opinion ; gold may be 
gold, and have the King's stamp upon it, when it is 
trampled upon by men. Happy are ye if, when the 
world trampleth upon you in your credit and good 
name, yet, ye are the Lord's gold, stamped with the 
King of Heaven's image, and sealed by his Spirit 
unto the day of your redemption. Pray for the 
spirit of love. Love "beareth all things, believeth 
all things, hopeth all things, and endureth all 
things." 

It is a miracle to believe, but for a sinner to be- 
lieve is two miracles. 

Ye write, that God's vows are lying on you ; 
and security, strong, and akin to nature, stealing on 
you who are weak. I answer: 1. Till we be in 
heaven, the best have heavy heads, as is evident. 
Nature is a sluggard, and loveth not the labor of 
religion ; therefore, rest should not be taken till we 
know that the disease is over, and in the way of turn- 
ing, and that it is like a fever past the cool : and the 
quietness and the calms of the faith of victory over 



1 88 A Garden of Spices. 

corruption should be entertained in the place of 
security ; so that if I sleep I should desire to sleep 
faith's sleep in Christ's bosom. 2. Know, also, that 
none who sleep sound can seriously complain of 
sleepiness. Sorrow for a slumbering soul is a token 
of some watchfulness of spirit ; but this is soon 
turned into wantonness, as grace in us too often is 
abused ; therefore, our waking must be watched 
over, else sleep will even grow out of watching ; and 
there is as much need to watch over grace as to 
watch over sin : full men will soon sleep, and sooner 
than hungry men. 

All, all for evermore be Christ's. What further 
trials are before me I know not ; but I know that 
Christ will have a saved soul of me, over on the 
other side of the water, on the yonder-side of crosses, 
and beyond men's wrongs. 

Madam, I have been holding out to some others — 
O, if I could to myself — some more of this, to read 
and study God well, and make the serious thoughts 
of a Godhead, and a Godhead in Christ, the work, 
and the only work, all the day. O, we are little with 
God ! and do all without God ! We sleep and wake 
without him ; we eat, we speak, we journey, we go 



The Riches of Free Grace. 1S9 

about worldly business, and our calling without God ! 
And, considering what deadness is upon the hearts 
of many, it were good that some did not pray with- 
out God, and preach and praise, and read and confer 
of God, without God. 

But seeing I have no wares, no hire, no money 
for Christ, he must either take me with want, mis- 
ery, corruption, or otherwise, want me. O, that he 
would be pleased to be compassionate and pitiful- 
hearted to my pining fevers of longing for him ; or 
then give me a real pawn to keep out of his own 
hand, till God send a meeting betwixt him and me. 
I lead no process now against the suspension and 
delay of God's love. I would with all my heart 
postpone till a day ten heavens, and the sweet man- 
ifestations of his love. O if he would persuade me 
of my heart's desire of his love at all, he should 
have the term day of payment at his own making. 
O how loathsome and burdensome it is to carry 
about a dead corpse, this old carrion of corruption ! 
O how available a thing is a Savior, to make a sin- 
ner rid of his chains and fetters ! 

I know that my Lord made me not for fire, how- 
beit he hath fitted me in some measure for the fire. 



190 A Garden of Spices. 

O, thrice blessed, and eternally blessed are 
they who are out of themselves, and above them- 
selves, that they may be in love united to him ! 

Long-suffering in God, is God himself, and 
that is our salvation, and the stability of our heaven 
is in God. 

Madam, subscribe to the Almighty's will ; put 
your hand to the pen, and let the cross of your Lord 
Jesus have your submissive and resolute Amen. 

I owe as many praises and thanks to free grace 
as would lie betwixt me and the utmost border of 
the highest heaven — suppose ten thousand heavens 
were all laid above each other. But, O, I have 
nothing that can hire or bribe grace ; for if grace 
would take hire it were no more grace ; but all our 
stability and the strength of our salvation is an- 
chored and fastened upon free grace ; and I am sure 
that Christ hath, by his death and blood, tied the 
knot so fast that the fingers of the devils and hell- 
fuls of sins can not loose it ; and that bond of 
Christ — which never yet was, nor ever shall, nor 
can be protested — standeth surer than heaven, or the 
days of heaven, as that sweet pillar of the covenant 



The Riches of Free Grace. 191 

whereon we all hang. Christ, with all his little ones 
under his two wings, and in the compass or circle 
of his arms, is so sure, that cast him and them into 
the bottom of the sea, he shall come up again and 
not lose one. 

O, but Christ hath a saving eye! Salvation is 
in his eyelids ! When he first looked on me I was 
saved ; it cost him but a look to make hell quit of 
me ! O, but merits, free merits, and the dear blood 
of God, were the best way that we ever could have 
gotten cut of hell ! O, what a sweet, O what a safe 
and sure way is it to come out of hell leaning on a 
Savior! That Christ and a sinner should be one, 
and have heaven betwixt them, and be halvers of 
salvation, is the wonder of salvation. 

Salvation, salvation is our only necessary thing. 

God hath singled out a mediator strong and 
mighty ; if you and your burdens were as heavy as 
ten hills or hells, he is able to bear you, and save 
you to the uttermost. 

Sinners can do nothing but make wounds, that 
Christ may heal them ; and make falls, that he may 



192 A garden of Spices. 

raise them ; and make deaths, that he may quicken 
them ; and spin out, and dig hells for themselves, 
that he may ransom them. Now, I will bless the 
Lord, that ever there was such a thing as the free 
grace of God, and a free ransom given for sold 
souls ; only, alas ! guiltiness maketh me ashamed to 
apply to Christ, and to think it pride in me to put 
out my unclean and withered hand to such a Savior. 
But it is neither shame nor pride for a drowning 
man to swim to a rock, nor for a ship-broken soul to 
run himself ashore upon Christ. 

I forgot that grace is the only garland that is 
worn in heaven upon the heads of the glorified. 
And now I half rejoice that I have sickness for 
Christ to work upon. Since I must have wounds, 
well is my soul ! I have a day's work for my physi- 
cian, Christ. I hope to give Christ his own calling ; 
it setteth him full well to cure diseases. 

O, what have I to say of that excellent, sur- 
passing, and super-eminent thing they call the grace 
of God — the way of free redemption in Christ ! 
And when poor, poor I, dead in law, was sold, fet- 
tered, and imprisoned in justice's closest ward, 
which is hell and damnation ; when I, a wretched 



The Riches of Free Grace. 



i93 



one, lighted upon noble Jesus, eternally kind Jesus, 
tender-hearted Jesus ; nay, when he lighted upon 
me first, and knew me, I found that he scorned to 
take a price, or any thing like hire, of angels or ser- 
aphim, or any of his creatures ; and, therefore, I 
would praise him for this, that the whole army of 
the redeemed ones sit, rent-free, in heaven. Our 
holding is better than a nominal rent ; we are all 
free-holders. And seeing that our eternal yearly 
rent is only thanks, O, woeful me ! that I have but 
spoiled thanks, lame, and broken, and miscarried 
praises to give him, and so my money is not good 
and current with Christ, were it not that free 
merits have stamped it, and washed it and me both ! 

Whatever your guiltiness be, yet, when it fall- 
eth into the sea of God's mercy, it is but like a 
drop of blood fallen into the great ocean. 

I am Christ's sworn bankrupt, to whom he will 
intrust nothing ; no, not one pin in the work of my 
salvation. Let me stand in black and white in the 
bankrupt roll before Christ. I am happy that my 
salvation is accredited to Christ's mediation. Christ 
oweth no faith to me, to intrust any thing to me ; 
but, O, what faith and credit I owe to him ! Let 
•3 



194 A Gakden of Spices. 

my name fall, and let Christ's name stand in honor 
with men and angels. 



Christ hath been multiplying grace by mercy 
above these five thousand years ; and the latter- 
born heirs have so much greater guiltiness that 
Christ hath passed more experiments and multi- 
plied essays of heart-love on others, by misbeliev- 
ing after it is past all question, many hundreds of 
ages that Christ is the undeniable and non-uncon- 
troverted treasurer of multiplied redemptions. So, 
now he is saying, " The more of the disease there is, 
the more of physician's art of grace and tenderness 
there must be." Only, I know, that no sinner can 
put infinite grace to it so as the Mediator shall 
have difficulty or much ado to save this or that 
man. Millions of hells of sinners can not come 
near to exhaust infinite grace. 

Think you it will be a small honor to stand be- 
fore the throne of God and the Lamb, and to be 
clothed in white, and to be called to the marriage- 
supper of the Lamb, and to be led to the "fount- 
ain of living waters," and to come to the well-head, 
even God himself, and get your fill of the clear, 
cold, sweet, refreshing waters of life — the King's 



The Riches of Free Grace. 195 

own well — and to put up your own single hand to 
the tree of life, and take down and eat the sweetest 
apple in all God's heavenly paradise — Jesus Christ, 
your life and your Lord. Up your heart! Shout 
for joy! Your king is coming to fetch you to his 
father's house. 

I must tell you what lovely Jesus, fair Jesus, 
king Jesus, has done to my soul. Sometimes he 
sendeth me a slight refreshment, and whispereth a 
word through the wall; and I am well content of 
kindness at the second hand ; his offer is ever wel- 
come to me, be what it will. But at other times he 
will be messenger himself, and I get the cup of sal- 
vation out of his own hand, and we can not rest 
till we be in other's arms ; and O, how sweet is a 
fresh kiss from his holy mouth ! I am careless, and 
stand not much on this ; howbeit loins, and back, 
and shoulders, and head rive in pieces in stepping 
up to my father's house. I know that my Lord can 
make long, and broad, and high, and deep glory to 
his name out of this worthless body ; for Christ 
looketh not what stuff he maketh glory out of. 

But, since he doth not drag the government at 
his heels, but hath it upon his shoulder; and, since 



196 A Garden of Spices. 

that nail fastened in a sure place can not be broken, 
nor can the smallest vessel fail to find sweet secur- 
ity in dependence upon him ; since all the weight of 
heaven and earth, of redeemed saints and confirmed 
angels is upon his shoulder, I am a fool, and brutish 
to imagine that I can add any thing to Christ's 
special care of, and tenderness to his people. He 
who keepeth the basins and knives of his house, 
and bringeth the vessels again to the second temple, 
must have a more tender care of his redeemed ones 
than of a spoon, or of a Peter's old shoes, which yet 
must not be lost in his captivity. 



XII. 



::;* 



jjepaded ilttldro. 



'NOT LOST, BUT GONE BEFORE.' 



!lF you would not be content that Christ 
should hold from you 'the heavenly inherit- 
ance, which is made yours by his death, 
shall not that same Christ think hardly of you, if 
you refuse to give him your daughter willingly, who 
is a part of his inheritance and conquest? 

But what? Do you think her lost, when she is 
but sleeping in the bosom of the Almighty ? Think 
not her absent who is in such a friend's house. Is 
she lost to you, who is found in Christ? If she 
were with a clear friend, although you should never 



19S A Garden of Spices. 

see her again, your care of her would be but small. 
O, now, is she not with a dear friend, and gone 
higher, upon a certain hope that you shall, in the 
resurrection, see her again, when — be sure — she 
will neither be hectic, nor consumed in body ! 

Your child is not sent away, but only sent be- 
fore ; like unto a star, which going out of our sight, 
doth not die and vanish, but shineth in another 
hemisphere ; you see her not, yet she doth shine 
in another country. If her glass were but a short 
hour, what she wanteth of time, that she hath gotten 
of eternity; and you have to rejoice that you have 
now some furniture up in heaven. Build your nest 
upon no tree here; for you see God hath sold the 
forest to death ; and every tree, whereupon you 
would rest, is ready to be cut down, to the end that 
we might fly and mount up and build upon the 
Rock, and dwell in the holes of the Rock. 

Take kindly and heartsomely with his cross 
who never yet slew a child with the cross. He 
breweth your cup ; therefore drink it patiently, and 
with the better will. He hath a father's heart and 
a father's hand, who is training you up, and making 
you meet for the high hall. Let all your visitations 



Our Departed Children. 199 

speak all the letters of your Lord's summons. 
They cry, " O, vain world ! O, bitter sin ! O, short 
and uncertain time! O, fair eternity, that is above 
sickness and death ! O, kingly and princely Bride- 
groom, hasten glory's marriage, shorten time's short 
span, and soon-broken thread, and conquer sin! O, 
happy and blessed death !" 

I believe that faith will teach you to kiss a 
striking Lord, and to acknowledge the sovereignty 
of God in the death of a child, to be above the 
power of us mortal men, who may pluck a flower in 
the bud and not be blamed for it. If our dear Lord 
pluck up one of his roses, and pull down sour and 
green fruit before the harvest, who can challenge 
him? 

It were but to shift the comforts of God to say, 
" Christ had never such a cross as mine ; he had 
never a dead child ; and so this is not his cross, 
neither can he, in that meaning, be the owner of 
this cross ;" but I hope that Christ, when he married 
you, married you and all the crosses and grieved 
hearts that follow you ; and the Word maketh no 
exception. " In all their afflictions he was afflicted." 
Then Christ bore the first stroke of this cross : it 



200 A Gardex of Spices. 

rebounded off him upon you, and you get it at the 
second hand, and he and you are halvers in it. He 
mindeth to distill heaven out of this loss and all 
others the like ; for wisdom devised it, and love laid 
it on, and Christ owneth it as his own, and putteth 
your shoulder only beneath a piece of it. It may 
be that you think not many of the children of God 
in such a hard case as yourself; but what would 
you think of some, who would exchange afflictions, 
and give you to the boot ? But I know that yours 
must be your own alone, and Christ's together. 

He commandeth you to weep ; and that princely 
One who took up to heaven with him a man's heart, 
to be a compassionate High Priest, became your 
Father and Companion on earth, by weeping for the 
dead. And, therefore, you are to lose that cross, 
because it was once on Christ's shoulders before 
you ; so that by his own practice he hath over- 
gilded and covered your cross with the Mediator's 
luster. The cup you drink was at the lip of sweet 
Jesus, and he drank of it ; and so it hath a smell of 
his breath, and I conceive that you love it not the 
worse because it is thus sugared ; therefore think 
and believe the resurrection of your son's body. 

And dying in another land, where his mother 



Our Departed Children. 201 

could not close his eyes, is not much. Who closed 
Moses' eyes ? and who put on his winding-sheet ? 
For aught I know, neither father nor mother, but 
God only. And there is as expeditious, fair, and 
easy a way betwixt Scotland and heaven, as if he 
had died in the very bed he was born in. The whole 
earth is his Father's ; any corner of his Father's 
house is good enough to die in. 

As sown corn is not lost — for there is more hope 
of that which is sown than of that which is eaten — 
I hope that you wait for the crop and harvest. 
Then they are not lost who are gathered into that 
congregation of the First-born, and the General 
Assembly of the saints. Though we can not out- 
run nor overtake them that are gone before, yet we 
shall quickly follow them : and the difference is that 
they have the advantage of some months or years 
of the crown before you. And we do not take it 
ill if our children outrun us in the life of grace. 
Why, then, are we sad, if they outstrip us in the 
attainment of the life of glory ? It would seem that 
there is more reason to grieve that children live be- 
hind us, than that they are glorified and die before. 
While your child was alive you could intrust her to 
Christ, and recommend her to his keeping ; won by 



202 A Garden of Spices. 

an after-faith, you have resigned her unto him in 
whose bosom do sleep all that are dead in the Lord. 
You would have lent her to glorify the Lord upon 
earth, and he hath borrowed her — with promise to 
return her again — to be an organ of the immediate 
glorifying of himself in heaven. Sinless glorifying 
of God is better than sinful glorifying of him. 

Believe that your child is not gone away, but 
sent before ; and that the change of the country 
should make you think that he is not lost to you, 
who is found to Christ. A going-down sun is not 
annihilated, but shall appear again. If he hath shed 
his bloom and flower, the bloom is fallen in heaven, 
into Christ's lap. And the difference of your ship- 
ping and his to heaven and Christ's shore, the land 
of life, is only in some few years, which weareth 
every day shorter, and some short and soon-reckoned 
Summers will give you a meeting with him. But 
what with him ? Nay, with better company, with 
the Chief and Leader of the heavenly troops, that 
are riding on white horses, that are triumphing in 
glory. 



Our Departed Children. 203 



0ur Chilton, 



'The Beautiful vanish, and return not.' 



They are stricken, darkly stricken ; 

Faint and fainter grows each breath, 
And the shadows round them thicken, 

Of the darkness that is Death. 
We are with them — bending o'er them — 

And the soul in sorrow saith, 
; ' Would that I had pass'd before them, 

To the darkness that is Death !" 

They are sleeping, coldly sleeping, 

In the graveyard, still and lone, 
Where the winds, above them sweeping, 

Make a melancholy moan. 
Thickly round us — darkly o'er us — 

Is the pall of sorrow thrown ; 
And our heart-beats make the chorus 

Of that melancholy moan. 

They are waking, brightly waking, 
From the slumbers of the tomb, 

And, enrobed in light, forsaking 
Its impenetrable gloom. 



204 A Garden of Spices. 

They are rising — they have risen — 

And their spirit-forms illume, 
In the darkness of Death's prison, 

The impenetrable gloom. 

They are passing, upward passing, 

Dearest beings of our love, 
And their spirit-forms are glassing 

In the beautiful Above. 
There we see them — there we hear them — 

Through our dreams they ever move, 
And we long to be anear them, 

In the beautiful Above. 

They are going, gently going, 

In their angel-robes to stand, 
Where the River of Life is flowing, 

In the far-off, silent Land. 
We shall mourn them — we shall miss them — 

From our broken little band; 
But our souls shall still caress them 

In the far-off, silent Land. 

They are singing, sweetly singing, 

Far beyond the vale of Night — 
Where the angel-harps are ringing, 

And the Day is ever bright. 
We can love them — we can greet them — 

From this land of dimmer light, 
Till God takes us hence to meet them, 

Where the day is ever bright. 

\V. D. Gallagher. 



XIII. 



lite mhtta Mtcrted to ptigenrc. 




EXHORT you not to lose breath, nor faint 
in your journey. The way is not so long 
to your home as it was ; it will wear to one 
step or an inch at length, and ye shall come erelong 
to be within your arm-length of the glorious crown. 
Your Lord Jesus did sweat and pant ere he got up 
that mount ; he was at " Father, save me," with it. 
It was he who said, " I am poured out like water ; all 
my bones are out of joint." Christ was as if they 
had broken him upon the wheel. "My heart is 
like wax ; it is melted in the midst of my bowels." 
"My strength is dried up like a potsherd." I am 
sure ye love the way the better, that his holy feet 
trod it before you. Crosses have a smell of crossed 
and pained Christ. I believe that your Lord will 



2o6 A Garden of Spices. 

not leave you to die alone in the way. I know that 
ye have sad hours, when the Comforter is hid under 
a vail, and when ye inquire for him, and find but an 
empty nest. This, I grant, is but a cold good-day, 
when the seeker misseth him whom the soul loveth ; 
but even his unkindness is kind, his absence lovely, 
his mask a sweet sight till God send Christ himself, 
in his own sweet presence. Make his sweet com- 
forts your own, and be not strange, and shame-faced 
with Christ. Familiar dealing is best for him ; it is 
his liking. When your Winter storms are over, the 
Summer of your Lord shall come ; your sadness is 
with child of joy ; he will do you good in the latter 
end. 

Take no heavier lift of your children than your 
Lord alloweth. Give them room beside your heart, 
but not in the yolk of your heart, where Christ 
should be; for then they are your idols, not your 
bairns. If your Lord take any of them home to 
his house before the storm come on, take it well. 
The owner of the orchard may take down two or 
three apples off his own trees, before midsummer, 
and ere they get the harvest sun ; and it would not 
be seemly that his servant — the gardener — should 
chide him for it. Let our Lord pluck his own fruit 
at any season he pleaseth ; they are not lost to you ; 



The Saints Exhorted to Diligence. 207 

they are laid up so well as that they are coffered in 
heaven, where our Lord's best jewels lie. They are 
all free goods that are there ; death can have no law 
to arrest any thing that is within the walls of the 
New Jerusalem. 

Little holiness in our balance is much, because 
it is holiness ; and we love to lay small burdens on 
our soft natures, and to make a fair court-way to 
heaven ; and I know it were necessary to take more 
pains than we do, and not to make heaven a city 
more easily taken than God hath made it. I per- 
suade myself that many runners will come short, 
and shall get a disappointment. O, how easy it is 
to deceive ourselves, and to sleep and wish that 
heaven may fall down into our laps ! 

On-waiting had ever yet a blessed issue ; and to 
keep the Word of God's patience, keepeth still the 
saints dry in the water, cold in the fire, and breath- 
ing and blood-hot in the grave. 

I charge you, in the name of God, I charge you 
to believe. Fear not the sons of men, the worms 
shall cat them. To pray and believe now, when 
Christ seemeth to give you a denial, is more than 



2oS A Garden of Spices. 

it was before. Die believing, die with Christ's 
promise in your hand. 

Hold on your course, for it may be that I shall 
not soon see you : you venture through the thick of 
all things after Christ, and lose not your master — 
Christ — in the throng of this great market. Let 
Christ know how heavy, and how many a stone- 
weight you, and your cares, burdens, crosses, and 
sins are. Let him bear all. Make the heritage 
sure to yourself: get charters and writs passed and 
through ; and put on arms for the battle, and keep 
you fast by Christ, and then let the wind blow out 
of what quarter it will, your soul shall not be blown 
into the sea. 

Yet this can hardly say any thing to us who do 
so much please ourselves in our deadness, and are 
almost gone from godly thirst and missing too, be- 
ing half-satisfied with our witheredness. No doubt 
we have marred his influences, and have not sec- 
onded nor smiled upon his actings upon us, nor 
have we been much of his strain who doth eight 
times breathe out that suit, "Quicken me, quicken 
me." So much are we desirous to be acted upon by 
the Lord as blocks and stones ; and so prodigal are 



The Saints Exhorted to Diligence. 



209 



we of his motions, as if they were no better to be 
husbanded ; but it is good, that it is not in our 
power to blast and undo his breathings ; but his 
wind bloweth where he listeth. Could we but learn 
and cast a quiet spirit under the dewings and show- 
erings of him that every moment watereth his vine- 
yard, how happy and blessed were we ! We neither 
open, nor do we discern his knocking, nor feel his 
hand put in through the keyhole, nor can we give 
any spiritual account of the walkings and motions 
of Christ, when he standeth behind the wall, when 
he cometh skipping over the mountains, when he 
cometh to his garden and feasteth, when he feedeth 
among the lilies, when his spikenard casteth a smell, 
when he knocketh and withdraweth, and is no where 
to be found. O, how little a portion of God do we 
see ! How little study we God ! how rarely read we 
God, or are versed in the lively apprehensions of that 
great unknown All in All, the glorious Godhead, and 
the Godhead revealed in Christ ! We dwell far from 
the well, and complain but dryly of our dryness and 
dullness : we are rather dry than thirsty. 

Sir, there may be artificial pride in this humility ; 

but for me, I neither know what he is, nor his 

Son's name, nor where he dwelleth. I hear a 

report of Christ's great enough, and that is all. 

14 



210 A Garden of Spices. 

O, what is nearness to him ? what is that to be " in 
God," to "dwell in God?" What a house must 
that be ! How far are some from their house and 
home — how ill acquainted with the rooms, man- 
sions, safety, and sweetness of holy security to be 
found in God ! O, what estrangement, what wan- 
dering, what frequent conversing with self and the 
creature ! " Is not here the bed shorter than that a 
man can stretch himself on it, and the covering 
narrower than that he can wrap himself in it?" 
When shall we attain to a living in only, only God, 
and be estranged from all the poor created noth- 
ings, the painted shadow-beings of yesterday, which 
an hour and less before creation were dark waste 
negatives and empty nothings, and should so have 
been for eternity had the Lord suffered them to lie 
there forever? 

Consider, it is impossible that your idol-sins 
and ye can go to heaven together, and that they 
who will not part with these can not indeed love 
Christ at the bottom, but only in word and show, 
which will not do the business. Remember how 
swiftly God's post, time, flieth away, and that your 
forenoon is already spent, your afternoon will come, 
and then your evening, and at last night, when ye 



The Saints Exhorted to Diligence. 211 

can not see to work ; let your heart be set upon the 
finishing of your journey, and the summing and 
laying of your accounts with your Lord. O, how 
blessed shall ye be to have a joyful welcome of 
your Lord at night ! How blessed are they who in 
time take sure course with their souls ! 

I hope I shall not need to show you that ye 
are in greater hazard from yourself and your own 
spirit — which should be watched over, that your 
actings for God may be clean, spiritual, purely for 
God, for the Prince of the kings of the earth — than 
ye can be in danger from your enemies. O, how 
hard is it to get the intentions so cut off from and 
raised above the creature as to be without mixture 
of creature and carnal interest, and to have the 
soul in heavenly actings only eyeing Himself, and 
acting from love to God, revealed to us in Jesus 
Christ ! Ye will find yourself, your delights, your 
solid glory — far above the air and breathings of 
mouths, and the thin, short, poor applauses of 
men — before you in God. 

Happy are they for evermore who can employ 
Christ and set his blood and death on work, to 
make clean work to God of foul souls. I know 



2r2 A Garden of Spices. 

that it is our sin that would have sanctification on 
the sunny side of the hill, and holiness with noth- 
ing but Summer, and crosses not at all. 

Sir, make sure work of your salvation ; build not 
upon sand ; lay the foundation upon the rock in 
Zion. Strive to be dead to this world, and to your 
will and lusts. Let Christ have a commanding 
power and a king's throne in you. Walk with 
Christ, howbeit the world should take the skin off 
your face ; I promise you that Christ will win the 
field. Your pastors cause you to err. Except you 
see Christ's word, go not one foot with them. Coun- 
tenance not the reading of that Romish service- 
book. Keep your garments clean, as ye would walk 
with the lamb clothed in white. The wrongs which 
I suffer are recorded in heaven ; our great Master 
and Judge will be upon us all, and bring us before 
the sun in our blacks and whites ; blessed are they 
who watch and keep themselves in God's love. 
Learn to discern the Bridegroom's tongue, and to 
give yourself to prayer and reading. Ye were often 
a hearer of me. I would put my heart's blood on 
the doctrine which I taught as the only way to 
salvation ; go not from it, my dear brother. What 
I write to you I write to your wife also. Mind 



The Saints Exhorted to Diligence. 213 

heaven and Christ, and keep the spark of the love 
of Christ which you have gotten. Christ will blow 
on it if ye entertain it, and your end shall be 
peace. There is a fire in our Zion, but our Lord 
is but seeking a new bride, refined and purified out 
of the furnace. I assure you, howbeit we be nick- 
named Puritans, that all the powers of the world 
shall not prevail against us. Remember, though a 
sinful man write to you, that those people shall be 
in Scotland as a green olive-tree and a field blessed 
of the Lord, and that it shall be proclaimed, "Up, 
up with Christ, and down, clown with all contrary 
powers !" 

And I verily think that the world hath too soft 
an opinion of the way to heaven, and that many 
shall get a blind and sad beguilement for heaven, 
for there is more ado than a cold and frozen " Lord, 
Lord." It must be a way narrower and straighter 
than we conceive, for the righteous shall scarcely 
be saved. It were good to take a more judicious 
view of Christianity, for I have been doubting if 
ever I knew any more of Christianity than the let- 
ters of the name. I will not lie on my Lord. I 
find often much joy and unspeakable comfort in 
His sweet presence who sent me hither, and I 



214 A Garden of Spices. 

trust this house of my pilgrimage shall be my pal- 
ace, my garden of delights, and that Christ will be 
kind to poor sold Joseph, who is separated from his 
brethren. 

We are but loose in trying our free-holding of 
Christ and making sure work of Christ. Holy fear 
is a searching of the camp, that there be no enemy 
within our bosom to betray us, and a seeing that 
all be fast and sure, for I see many leaky vessels 
fair before the wind, and professors who take their 
conversion upon trust, and they go on securely, and 
see not the water in the hold till a storm sink them. 

I long to hear how your soul prospereth. I 
earnestly desire you to try how matters stand be- 
tween your soul and the Lord. Think it no easy 
matter to take heaven by violence. Salvation com- 
eth now to the most part of men in a night-dream. 
There is no scarcity of faith now, such as it is, for 
ye shall not now light upon the man who will not 
say he hath faith in Christ ; but, alas ! dreams make 
no man's rights. 

Worthy sir, I beseech you in the Lord to give 
your soul no rest till ye have real assurance, and 
Christ's rights confirmed and sealed to your soul. 



The Saints Exhorted to Diligence. 215 

The common faith, and country holiness, and week- 
day zeal that is among people will never bring men 
to heaven. Take pains for your salvation, for in 
that day when ye shall see many men's labors, and 
acquisitions, and idol-riches lying in ashes, when 
the earth and all the works thereof shall be burned 
with fire, O how dear a price would your soul give 
for God's favor in Christ ! It is a blessed thing to 
see Christ with up-sun, and to read over your 
papers and soul accounts with fair daylight. It 
will not be time to cry for a lamp when the Bride- 
groom is entered into his chamber and the door 
shut. 

We would all be glad to divide the spoil with 
Christ, and to ride in triumph with him ; but O, 
how few will take a cold bed of straw in the camp 
with him! How fain would men have a well- 
thatched house above' their heads all the way to 
heaven ! And many now would go to heaven the 
land way — for they love not to be sea-sick — riding 
up to Christ upon foot-mantles and rattling coaches, 
and rubbing their velvet with the princes of the 
land in the highest seats. If this be the way that 
Christ called straight and narrow, I quit all skill of 
the way to salvation. Are they not now auctioning 



2i 6 A Garden of Spices. 

Christ and the Gospel ? Have they not put our 
Lord Jesus to the market, and he who outbiddeth 
his fellow shall get him ? 

O, my dear and noble lord, go on, howbeit the 
wind be in your face, to back our princely Captain. 
Be courageous for him. Fear not those who have 
no subscribed lease of days. The worms shall eat 
kings. Let the Lord Jehovah be your fear, and 
then, as the Lord liveth, the victory is yours. It 
is true that many are striking up a new way to 
heaven, but my soul for theirs if they find it, and 
if this be not the only way whose end is Christ's 
Father's house ; and my weak experience since the 
day I was first in bonds hath confirmed me in the 
truth and assurance of this. Let doctors and 
learned men cry the contrary, I am persuaded that 
this is the way. The bottom hath fallen out of 
both their wisdom and conscience at once ; their 
book hath beguiled them, for we have fallen upon 
the true Christ. I dare hazard — if I alone had ten 
souls — my salvation upon this Stone that many now 
break their bones upon. Let them take this fat 
world. O, poor and hungry is their paradise! 
Therefore let me entreat your lordship, by your 
appearing before Christ now, while this piece of the 
afternoon of your day is before you — for ye know 



The Saints Exhorted to Diligence. 217 

not when your sun will turn and eternity shall 
benight you — let your worldly glory, honor, and 
might be for our Lord Jesus. And to his rich 
grace and tender mercy, and to the never-dying 
comforts of his gracious Spirit I recommend your 
lordship and your noble house. 

Every man blameth the devil for his sins, but 
the great devil, the house-devil of every man, the 
house-devil that eateth and lieth in every man's 
bosom is that idol that killeth all himself. O, 
blessed are they who can deny themselves, and put 
Christ in the room of themselves ! O, would to 
the Lord that I had not a myself, but Christ ; nor 
a my lust, but Christ ; nor a my ease, but Christ ; 
nor a my honor, but Christ ! O, sweet word ! " I 
live no more, but Christ liveth in me !" O, if every 
one would put away himself, his own self, his own 
ease, his own pleasure, his own credit, and his own 
twenty things, his own hundred things which he 
setteth up as idols above Christ ! Dear sir, I know 
that ye will be looking back to your old self, and to 
your self-lust and self-idol which ye set up in the 
lusts of youth above Christ. 

Worthy sir, pardon this, my freedom of love. 
God is my witness that it is out of an earnest 



21S A Garden of Spices. 

desire after your soul's eternal welfare that I use 
this freedom of speech. Your sun, I know, is 
lower, and your evening sky and sunsetting nearer 
than when I saw you last ; strive to end your task 
before night, and to make Christ yourself, and to 
acquaint your love and your heart with the Lord. 
Stand now by Christ and his truth when so many 
fall foully and are false to him. I hope that ye love 
him and his truth ; let me have power with you to 
confirm you in him. I think more of my Lord's 
sweet cross than of a crown of gold and a free 
kingdom lying to it. 

Strive to make prayer, and reading, and holy 
company, and holy conference your delight ; and 
when delight cometh in ye shall by little and little 
smell the sweetness of Christ, till at length your 
soul be over head and ears in Christ's sweetness. 
Then shall ye be taken up to the top of the mount- 
ain with the Lord, to know the ravishments of spir- 
itual love, and the glory and excellency of a seen, 
revealed, felt, and embraced Christ ; and then ye 
shall not be able to loose yourself oft" Christ and 
to bind your soul to old lovers ; then, and never till 
then, are all the paces, motions, walkings, and wheels 
of your soul in a right tune and in a spiritual temper. 



The Saints Exhorted to Diligence. 219 

I believe your lordship is one of Zion's friends, 
and that by obligation ; for when the Lord shall 
count and write up the people, it shall be written, 
"This man was born there :" therefore, because your 
lordship is a born son of the House, I hope your de- 
sire is, that the beauty and glory of the Lord may 
dwell in the midst of the city, whereof your lord- 
ship is a son. It must be, without all doubt, the 
greatest honor of your place and house, to kiss the 
Son of God, and for his sake to be kind to his 
oppressed and wronged bride, who, now in the day 
of her desolation, beggeth help of you, that are the 
shields of the earth. I am sure that many kings, 
princes, and nobles, in the day of Christ's second 
coming, would be glad to run errands for Christ, 
even barefooted, through fire and water; but in that 
day he will have none of their service. Now he is 
asking, if your lordship will help him against the 
mighty of the earth, when men are setting their 
shoulders to Christ's fair and beautiful Tent in this 
land, to loosen its stakes, and break it down ; and 
certainly such as are not with Christ are against 
him ; and blessed shall your lordship be of the 
Lord, blessed shall your house and seed be, and 
blessed shall your honor be, if ye empawned and 
laid in Christ's hand the Earldom of Cassillis — and 



220 A Garden of Spices. 

it is but a shadow in comparison of the city made 
without hands — and laid it even at the stake, rather 
than Christ and borne-down truth have not a wit- 
ness of you against the apostasy of this land. Ye 
hold your lands of Christ, your charters are under 
his seal, and he who hath many crowns on his head, 
dealeth, cutteth, and carveth pieces of this clay- 
heritage to men, at his pleasure. It is little that 
your lordship hath to give him. He will not sleep 
long in your common, but shall surely pay home 
your losses for his cause. It is but our bleared eyes 
that look through a false glass to this idol-god of 
clay, and think something of it. They who are 
passed with their last sentence to heaven or hell, 
and have made their reckoning, and departed out 
of this smoky inn, have now no other conceit of 
this world, but as a piece of beguiling well-lustered 
clay. 

Hold fast Christ without wavering, and contend 
for the faith, because Christ is not easily gotten nor 
kept. The lazy professor hath put heaven, as it 
were, at the very next door, and thinketh to fly up 
to heaven in his bed, and in a night-dream ; but, 
truly, that is not so easy a thing as most men be- 
lieve ; Christ himself did sweat ere he won this city, 



The Saints Exhorted to Diligence. 221 

howbeit he was the free-born heir. It is Chris- 
tianity, my heart, to be sincere, unfeigned, honest, 
and upright-hearted before God ; and to live and 
serve God, suppose there was not one man nor 
woman in all the world dwelling beside you, to eye 
you. Any little grace that ye have, see that it be 
sound and true. 

But if this world and the lusts thereof be your 
delight, I know not what Christ can make of you ; 
ye can not be metal to be a vessel of glory and 
mercy. As the Lord liveth, thousand thousands 
are beguiled with security, because God, and wrath, 
and judgment are not terrible to them. Stand in 
awe of God, and of the warnings of a checking and 
rebuking conscience. Make others to see Christ in 
you, moving, doing, speaking and thinking : your 
actions will smell of him, if he be in you. 

Salvation, salvation is the only necessary thing: 
this clay-idol, the world, is not to be sought ; it is a 
morsel not for you, but for hunger-bitten bastards. 
Contend for salvation. Your master, Christ, won 
heaven with strokes ; it is a besieged castle, it must 
be taken with violence. O, this world thinketh 
heaven but at the next door, and that godliness may 



222 A Garden of Spices. 

sleep in a bed of down, till it come to heaven ! — but 
that will not do it. 

Serve Christ, back him ; let his cause be your 
cause ; give not an hair-breadth of truth away ; for 
it is not yours, but God's. Then, since ye are go- 
ing, take Christ's certificate with you out of this 
life — " Well done, good and faithful servant !" His 
"well-done" is worth a shipful of "good-days" and 
earthly honors. I have cause to say this, because 
I find him Truth itself. In my sad days, Christ 
laugheth cheerfully, and saith, "All will be well!" 

Therefore, kneel to Christ, and kiss the Son, 
and let him have your lordship's vote, as your only 
Lawgiver. I am sure that when you leave the old 
waste inn of this perishing life, and shall reckon 
with your host, and depart hence, and take ship- 
ping, and make over for eternity, which is the yonder 
side of time — and a sand-glass of three-score short 
years is running out — to look over your shoulder, 
then, to that which ye have done, spoken, and 
suffered for Christ, his dear bride — that he ran- 
somed with that blood which is more precious than 
gold — and for truth, and the freedom of Christ's 
kingdom, your accounts will more sweetly smile 



The Saints Exhorted to Diligence. 223 

and laugh upon you than if you had two worlds of 
gold to leave to your posterity. O my dear Lord, 
consider that our Master, eternity, and judgment, 
and the last reckoning, will be upon us in the twink- 
ling of an eye. The blast of the Last Trumpet, 
now hard at hand, will cry down all acts of Parlia- 
ment, all the determinations of pretended assem- 
blies against Christ our Lawgiver. There will be 
shortly a proclamation by One standing in the 
clouds, that time shall be no more, and that courts 
with kings of clay shall be no more ; and prisons, 
confinements, forfeitures of nobles, wrath of kings, 
hazard of lands, houses, and name, for Christ, shall 
be no more. This world's span-length of time is 
drawn now to less than half an inch, and to the 
point of the evening of the day of this old gray- 
haired world ; and, therefore, be fixed and fast for 
Christ and his truth for a time ; and fear not him 
whose life goeth out at his nostrils, who shall die as 
a man. I am persuaded Christ is responsible, and 
law-biding, to make recompense for any thing that 
is hazarded or given out for him — losses for Christ 
are but our goods given out in bank in Christ's 
hand. Kings earthly are well-favored little clay 
gods, time's idols ; but a sight of our invisible King 
shall decry and darken all the glory of this world. 



224 A Gardex of Spices. 

At the day of Christ, truth shall be truth, and not 
treason. Alas ! it is pitiful that silence, when the 
thatch of our Lord's house hath taken fire, is now 
the flower and bloom of court and state wisdom ; 
and to cast a covering over a good profession — as 
if it blushed at light — is thought a prudent and sure 
way through this life ; but the safest way, I am per- 
suaded, is to lose and win with Christ, and to hazard 
fairly for him ; for heaven is but a company of noble 
ventures for Christ. I dare hazard my soul that 
Christ will grow green, and blossom like the Rose 
of Sharon yet in Scotland ; howbeit now his leaf 
seemeth to wither, and his root to dry up. 

Ye are the seed of the faithful, and born within 
the covenant. Claim your right. I would not ex- 
change Christ Jesus for ten worlds of glory : I know 
now — blessed be my Teacher — how to push back 
the lock, and unbolt my Well-beloved's door — and 
he maketh a poor stranger welcome when he cometh 
to his house. I am swelled up and satisfied with 
the love of Christ, that is better than wine. It is a 
fire in my soul : let hell and the world cast water 
on it, they will not mend themselves. I have now 
gotten the right way of Christ. I recommend him 
to you above all things. Come and find the smell 



The Saints Exhorted to Diligence. 225 

of his breath ; see if his kisses be not sweet ; he 
desireth no better than to be much made of. Be 
familiar with him, and ye shall be the more wel- 
come — ye know not how fain Christ would have all 
your love. 

Grace, mercy, and peace be to you. I long to 
hear how your soul prospereth. I exhort you to go 
on in your journey: your day is short, and your 
afternoon-sun will soon go clown. Make an end 
of your accounts with your Lord ; for death and 
judgment are tides that wait for no man. Salvation 
is supposed to be at the door, and Christianity is 
thought an easy task ; but I find it hard, and the 
way strait and narrow, were it not that my Guide 
is content to wait on me, and to care for a tired 
traveler. Hurt not your conscience with any known 
sin. Let your children be as so many flowers, bor- 
rowed from God. If the flowers die or wither, thank 
God for a Summer loan of them, and keep on the 
most intimate terms with him. Set your heart upon 
heaven, and trouble not your spirit with this clay- 
idol of the world, which is but vanity, and hath but 
the luster of the rainbow in the air, which cometh 
and gocth with a flying March shower. Clay is the 
idol of bastards, not the inheritance of the children. 



226 A Garden of Spices. 

I rejoice to hear that Christ hath run away with 
your young love, and that ye are so early in the 
morning matched with such a lord ; for a young 
man is often a dressed lodging for the devil to 
dwell in. Be humble and thankful for grace, and 
weigh it not so much by weight as if it be true. 
Christ will not cast water on your smoking coal; 
he never yet put out a dim candle that was lighted 
at the Sun of Righteousness. I recommend to you 
prayer and watching over the sins of your youth, 
for I know that missive letters go between the devil 
and young blood. Satan hath a friend at court in 
the heart of youth, and there pride, luxury, lust, 
revenge, forgetfulness of God are hired as his 
agents. Happy is your soul if Christ man the 
house, and take the keys himself and command all, 
as it suiteth him full well to rule all wherever he 
is. Keep Christ and entertain him well, cherish 
his grace, blow upon your own coal, and let him 
tutor you. 

Happy are they who are found watching. Our 
sand-glass is not so long as we need to weary. 
Time will eat away and root out our woes and sor- 
rows. Our heaven is in the bud, and growing up 
to a harvest ; why, then, should we not follow on, 



The Saints Exhorted to Diligence. 227 

seeing our span-length of time will come to an 
inch ? Therefore I commend Christ to you as your 
last living and longest living husband, and the staff 
of your old age. Let him now have the rest of 
your days. And think not much of a storm upon 
the ship that Christ saileth in ; there shall no pas- 
senger fall overboard, but the crazed ship and the 
seasick passengers shall come to land safe. 

Ye are truly blessed of the Lord, however a 
sour world frown upon you, if ye continue in the 
faith grounded and settled, and be not moved away 
from the hope of the Gospel. It is good that there 
is a heaven, and it is not a night-dream or a fancy. 
It is a wonder that men deny not that there is a 
heaven, as they deny there is a way to it but of 
men's making. You have learned of Christ that 
there is a heaven ; contend for it, and contend for 
Christ ; bear well and submissively the hard cross 
of this step-mother world, that God will not have to 
be yours. I confess it is hard, and I would I were 
able to ease you of your burden, but believe me 
that this world — which the Lord will not have to 
be yours — is but the dross, the refuse, and scum of 
God's creation, the portion of the Lord's poor hired 
servants ; the movables, not the heritage ; a hard 



228 A Garden of Sp/ces. 

bone casten to the dogs, holden out of the New 
Jerusalem, whereupon they rather break their teeth 
than satisfy their appetite. It is your Father's 
blessing and Christ's birthright that our Lord is 
keeping for you, and I persuade you that your 
seed, also, shall inherit the earth — if that be good 
for them — for that is promised to them, and God's 
bond is as good and better than if men would give 
every one of them a bond for a thousand thousands. 

I persuade my soul that this is the way to 
heaven, and his own truth I now suffer for. I 
exhort you, in the name of Christ, to continue in 
the truth which I delivered unto you. Make Christ 
sure to your soul, for your day draweth nigh to an 
end. Many slide back now who seemed to be 
Christ's friends, and prove dishonest to him ; but 
be ye faithful to the death, and ye shall have the 
crown of life. This span-length of your days 
whereof the Spirit of God speaketh shall, within 
a short time, come to a finger-breadth, and at 
length to nothing. O, how sweet and comfortable 
will the feast of a good conscience be to you when 
your eye-strings shall break, your face wax pale, 
and the breath turn cold, and your poor soul come 
sighing to the windows of the house of clay of your 



The Saints Exhorted to Diligence. 229 

dying body, and shall long to be out, and to have 
the jailer to open the door, that the prisoner may be 
set at liberty ! Ye draw nigh the water side ; look 
to your accounts ; ask for your Guide to take you 
to the other side. Let not the world be your por- 
tion ; what have ye to do with dead clay ? Ye are 
not a bastard, but a lawfully begotten child; there- 
fore set your heart on the inheritance. Go up be- 
forehand and see your lodging. Look through all 
your Father's rooms in heaven ; in your Father's 
house are many dwelling-places ; men take a view 
of lands ere they buy them. I know that Christ 
hath made the bargain already ; but be kind to the 
house ye are going to, and see it often. Set your 
heart on things that are above, where Christ is at 
the right hand of God. 

Now, sir, in your youth gather fast ; your sun 
will mount to the meridian quickly, and thereafter 
decline. Be greedy of grace. Study, above any 
thing, my clear brother, to mortify your lusts. O, 
but pride of youth, vanity, lust, idolizing of the 
world, and charming pleasures take long time to 
root them out ! As far as ye are advanced in the 
way to heaven, as near as ye are to Christ, as 
much progress as ye have made in the way of 



230 A Garden of Spices. 

mortification, ye will find that ye are far behind, 
and have most of your work before you. I never 
took it to be so hard to be dead to my lusts and to 
this world. When the day of visitation cometh, 
and your old idols come weeping about you, ye 
will have much ado not to break your heart ; it is 
best to give up in time with them, so as ye could 
at a call quit your part of this world for a drink of 
water or a thing of nothing. Verily, I have seen 
the best of this world, a motheaten, threadbare coat. 
I purpose to lay it aside, being now old and full of 
holes. O for my house above not made with hands ! 

Your sun is well turned and low ; be nigh your 
lodging against night. We go one and one out of 
this great market, till the town be empty, and the 
two lodgings, heaven and hell, be filled. At length 
there will be nothing in the earth but empty walls 
and burnt ashes, and therefore it is best to make 
away. Antichrist and his master are busy to re- 
plenish hell and to seduce many, and stars, great 
Church-lights, are falling from heaven, and many 
are misled and seduced, and are content with their 
faith, and sell their birthrights, by their hungry 
hunting, for I know not what. Fasten your hold 
surely upon Christ. I verily esteem him the best 



The Saints Exhorted to Diligence. 231 

possession that I have. He is my second in prison. 
Having him, though my cross were as heavy as ten 
mountains of iron, when he putteth his sweet shoul- 
der under me and it my cross is but a feather. I 
please myself in the choice of Christ ; he is my 
hold in heaven and earth. I rejoice that he is in 
heaven before me. God send a joyful meeting, and 
in the mean time the traveler's charges for the way ; 
I mean a burden of Christ's love, to sweeten the 
journey and to encourage a breathless runner, for 
when I lose breath climbing up the mountain he 
maketh new breath. 

I beseech you in the Lord Jesus, make fast and 
sure work of life eternal. Sow not rotten seed: 
every man's work will speak for itself, what his seed 
hath been. O, how many see I, who sow to the 
flesh! Alas, what a crop will that be, when the 
Lord shall put in his sickle to reap this world, that 
is ripe and white for judgment! 

I recommend to you holiness and sanctification, 
and that you keep yourself clean from this present 
evil world. We delight to tell our own dreams, and 
to flatter our own flesh with the hope which we 
have : it were wisdom for us to be free, plain, honest, 
and sharp with our own souls, and to charge them 



232 A Garden of Spices. 

to brew better, that they may drink well, and fare 
well, when time is melted away like snow in a hot 
Summer. 0, how hard a thing is it to get the soul 
to give up with all things on this side of death and 
doomsday ! We say that we are removing and going 
from this world ; but our heart stirreth not one foot 
off its seat. Alas ! I see few heavenly-minded souls, 
that have nothing upon the earth, but their body of 
clay going up and down this earth, because their 
soul and the powers of it are up in heaven, and 
there their hearts live, desire, enjoy, rejoice. O ! 
men's souls have no wings, and, therefore, night and 
day they keep their nest, and are not acquainted 
with Christ. Sir, take you to your one thing, to 
Christ, that ye may be acquainted with the taste 
of his sweetness and excellency, and charge your 
love not to dote upon this world ; for it will not do 
your business in that day, when nothing will come 
in good stead to you but God's favor. Build upon 
Christ some good, choice, and fast work ; for when 
your soul for many years hath taken the play, and 
hath posted and wandered through the creatures, ye 
will come home again with the wind — they are not 
good, at least not the soul's good. It is the infinite 
Godhead that must allay the sharpness of your 
hunger after happiness ; otherwise there shall still 



The Saints Exhorted to Diligence. 233 

be a want of satisfaction to your desires ; and if he 
should cast in ten worlds into your desires, all shall 
fall through, and your soul will still cry, " Red 
hunger, black hunger ;" but I am sure there is 
sufficient for you in Christ, if ye had seven souls 
and seven desires in you. 

The last tide will not wait for you one moment : 
if ye forget any thing, when your sea is full and your 
foot in that ship, there is no returning again to fetch 
it. What ye do amiss in your life to-day ye may 
amend it to-morrow ; for as many suns as God 
maketh to arise upon you ye have as many new 
lives ; but ye can die but once, and if ye mar or 
spoil that business ye can not come back to mend 
that piece of work again. No man sinneth twice 
in dying ill ; as we die but once, so we die but ill or 
well once. Ye see how the number of your months 
is written in God's book ; and as one of the Lord's 
hirelings, ye must work till the shadow of the even- 
ing come upon you, and ye shall run your glass 
even to the last grain of sand. Fulfill your course 
with joy ; for we take nothing to the grave with us 
but a good or evil conscience. And, although the 
sky clear after this storm, yet clouds will engender 
another. 



234 A Garden of Spices. 

Madam, as to your own case, I love careful, and, 
withal, doing complaints of want of practice, be- 
cause I observe many who think it holiness enough 
to complain, and set themselves at nothing, as if to 
say "I am sick" would cure them ; they think com- 
plaints a good charm for guiltiness. I hope that ye 
are wrestling and struggling on in this dead age 
wherein folks have lost tongue, and legs, and arms 
for Christ. I urge upon you, madam, a nearer 
communion with Christ, and a growing communion. 
There are curtains to be drawn past in Christ that 
we never saw, and new foldings of love in him. I 
despair that ever I shall get to the far end of that 
love, there are so many plies in it. Therefore dig 
deep, and sweat, and labor, and take pains for him, 
and set by as much time in the day for him as you 
can ; he will be won with labor. 

Salvation is not an easy thing, and soon got- 
ten. I often told you that few are saved, and many 
damned: I pray you to make your poor soul sure 
of salvation, and the seeking of heaven your daily 
task. If ye never had a sick night and a pained 
soul for sin, ye have not yet lighted upon Christ. 
Look to the right marks of having closed with 
Christ. If ye love him better than the world, and 



The Saints Exhorted to Diligence. 235 

would quit all the world for him, then that saith 
the work is sound. O, if ye saw the beauty of 
Jesus, and smelled the fragrance of his love, you 
would run through fire and water to be at him! 
God send you him. 

When Christ hideth himself, wait on, and make 
din till he return ; it is not time then to be care- 
lessly patient. I love to be grieved when he hideth 
his smiles ; yet believe his love in a patient on-wait- 
ing and believing in the dark. Ye must learn to 
swim and hold up your head above the water, 
even when the sense of his presence is not with 
you to hold up your chin : I trust in God that 
he will bring your ship safe to land. I counsel 
you to study sanctification, and to be dead to this 
world. 

O how little is your handbreadth and span- 
length of days here ! Your inch of time is less 
than when ye and I parted. Eternity, eternity is 
coming, posting on with wings — then shall every 
man's blacks and whites be brought to light. O 
how low will your thoughts be of this fair-skinned 
but heart-rotten apple, the vain, vain, foolish world, 
when the worms shall make their houses in your 



27,6 A Garden of Spices. 

eye-holes, and shall eat off the flesh from the ball 
of your cheeks, and shall make that body a number 
of dry bones ! Think not that the common way 
of serving God, as neighbors and others do, will 
bring you to heaven. Few, few are saved. The 
devil's court is thick and many : he hath the greatest 
number of mankind for his vassals. I know this 
world is a forest of thorns in your way to heaven ; 
but you must go through it. Acquaint yourselves 
with the Lord : hold fast Christ ; hear his voice 
only ; bless his name ; sanctify and keep his day ; 
keep the new commandment, " Love one another :" 
let the Holy Spirit dwell in your bodies, and be 
clean and holy : love not the world : lie not, love 
and follow truth : learn to know God : keep in mind 
what I taught you ; for God will seek an account 
of it when I am far from you : abstain from all evil, 
and all appearance of evil : follow good carefully : 
seek peace and follow after it : honor your King, 
and pray for him : remember me to God in your 
prayers, I do not forget you. 

Satan layeth upon men a burden of cares above 
a load, and maketh a pack-horse of men's souls, 
when they are wholly set upon this world. We owe 
the devil no such service. It were wisdom to throw 



The Saixts Exhorted to Diligexce. 237 

off that load into a mire, and cast all our cares over 
upon God. 

Let pleasures and gain, will and desires of this 
world, be put over into God's hands, as arrested and 
fenced goods, that ye can not intermeddle with. 
Now, when ye are drinking the grounds of your 
cup, and ye are upon the utmost end of the last link 
of time, and old age, like death's long shadow, is 
casting a covering upon your days, it is no time to 
court this vain life, and to set love and heart upon 
it. It is near after-supper ; seek rest and ease for 
your soul in God through Christ. 

I long exceedingly to know if the oft-spoken-of 
match betwixt you and Christ holdeth, and if ye 
follow on to know the Lord. My day-thoughts and 
my night-thoughts are of you : while ye sleep I am 
afraid of your souls, that they be off the rock ; next 
to my Lord Jesus and this fallen Kirk, ye have the 
greatest share of my sorrow, and also of my joy ; ye 
are the matter of the tears, care, fear, and daily 
prayers of an oppressed prisoner of Christ. 



XIV. 



Januiiga and Intreaiws 




AM glad to hear that you, in the morning 
r^JJ of your short clay, mind Christ, and that 

you love the honor of his crown and king- 
dom. I beseech your lordship to begin now to 
frame your love, and to cast it in no mold but one, 
that it may be for Christ only, for when your love 
is now in the framing and making it will take best 
with Christ. If any other than Jesus get a hold of 
it when it is green and young, Christ will be a cold 
and strange world to you. Promise the lodging of 
your soul first away to Christ, and stand by your 
first covenant and keep to Jesus, that he may find 
you honest. It is easy to master an arrow and to 
set it right ere the string be drawn, but when once 
it is shot and in the air, and the flight begun, then 



Warnings and Entreaties. 



239 



ye have no more power at all to command it. It 
were a blessed thing if your love could now level 
only at Christ, that his fair face were the black of 
the mark ye shot at ; for when your love is loosed 
and out of your grasp, and in its motion to fetch 
home an idol, and hath taken a whorish gadding 
journey to seek an unknown and strange lover, ye 
shall not then have power to call home the arrow 
or to be master of your love, and ye will hardly 
give Christ what ye scarcely have yourself. 

I speak not this as if youth itself could fetch 
heaven and Christ. Believe it, my lord, it is hardly 
credible what a nest of dangerous temptations youth 
is ; how inconsiderate, foolish, proud, vain, heady, 
rash, profane, and careless of God this piece of your 
life is, so that the devil findeth in that age a gar- 
nished and well-swept house, and seven devils worse 
than himself, for then affections are on horseback, 
lofty and stirring; then the old man hath blood, 
lust, much will, and little wit, and hands, feet, wan- 
ton eyes, profane ears as his servants, and as king's 
officers at command, to come and go at his will. 
Then a green conscience is as easily bent as the 
twig of a young tree. It is for every way, every 
religion ; every lewd course prevaileth with it ; and, 
therefore, O what a sweet couple, what a glorious 



240 A Garden of Spices. 

yoke are youth and grace, Christ and a young man ! 
This is a meeting not to be found in every town. 
None who have been at Christ can bring back to 
your lordship a report answerable to his worth, for 
Christ can not be spoken of or commended accord- 
ing to his worth. "Come and see" is the most 
faithful messenger to speak of him ; little persua- 
sion would prevail where this was. It is impossible, 
in the setting out of Christ's love, to lie and pass 
over truth's line. The discourses of angels, or love- 
books written by the congregation of seraphim — all 
their wits being conjoined and melted into one — 
would forever be in the nether side of truth and of 
plentifully declaring the thing as it is. The infinite- 
ness, the boundlessness of that incomparable excel- 
lency that is in Jesus is a great word. God send 
me, if it were but the relics and leavings, or an 
ounce weight or two of his matchless love ; and 
suppose I never got another heaven — provided this 
blessed fire were evermore burning — I could not 
but be happy forever. Come hither, then, and give 
out your money wisely for bread ; come hither and 
bestow your love. 

I entreat you now, in the morning of your life, 
to seek the Lord and his face. Beware of the folly 



Warnings and Entreaties. 241 

of dangerous youth — a perilous time for your soul. 
Love not the world. Keep faith and truth with all 
men in your covenants and bargains. Walk with 
God, for he seeth you. Do nothing but that which 
ye may and would do if your eye-strings were break- 
ing and your breath growing cold. Ye heard the 
truth of God from me, my dear heart ; follow it and 
forsake it not. Prize Christ and salvation above all 
the world. To live after the guise and course of 
the rest of the world will not bring you to heaven ; 
without faith in Christ and repentance ye can not 
see God. Take pains for salvation ; press forward 
toward the mark for the prize of the high calling ; 
if ye watch not against evils night and day which 
beset you ye will come behind. Beware of lying, 
swearing, uncleanness, and the rest of the works 
of the flesh, because " for these things the wrath of 
God cometh upon the children of disobedience." 
How sweet soever they may seem for the present, 
yet the end of these courses is the eternal wrath of 
God and utter darkness, where there is weeping and 
gnashing of teeth. 

I think I have just reason to quit my part of 
any hope or love that I have to this scum, and the 
refuse of the dross of God's workmanship, this vain 
16 



242 A Garden of Spices. 

earth. I owe to this stormy world — whose kindness 
and heart to me have been made of iron, or a piece 
of a wild sea-island that never a creature of God 
lodged in — not a look ; I owe it no love, no hope ; 
and, therefore, O that my love were dead to it, and 
my soul dead to it ! What am I obliged to this 
nouse of my pilgrimage ? A straw for all that God 
hath made to my soul's liking except God and that 
lovely One, Jesus Christ. Seeing I am not this 
world's debtor, I desire that I may be stripped of 
all confidence in any thing but my Lord, that he 
may be for me, and I for my only, only, only Lord, 
that he may be the morning and evening tide, the 
top and the root of my joys, and the heart, and 
flower, and yolk of all my soul's delights. O, let 
me never lodge any creature in my heart and con- 
fidence ! Let the house be for him. I rejoice that 
sad days cut off a piece of the lease of my short 
life, and that my shadow, even while I suffer, wear- 
cth long, and my evening hasteneth on. I have 
cause to love home with all my heart, and to take 
the opportunity of the day to hasten to the end of 
my journey before the night come on wherein a 
man can not see to walk or work, that once after 
my falls I may at night fall in, weary and tired as 
I am, into Christ's bosom and betwixt his breasts. 



Warnings and Entreaties. 243 

Our prison can not be our best country. This 
world looketh not like heaven and the happiness 
that our tired souls would be at, and therefore it 
were good to seek about for the wind, and hoist up 
our sails toward our New Jerusalem, for that is 
our best. 

I have heard of your daughter's marriage. I 
pray the Lord Jesus to subscribe the contract and 
to be at the banquet, as he was at the marriage in 
Cana of Galilee. Show her from me that, though 
it be true that God's children have prayed for her, 
yet the promise of God is made to her prayers and 
faith especially, and therefore I would entreat her 
to seek the Lord to be at the wedding ; let her give 
Christ the love of her virginity and espousals, and 
choose him first as her husband, and that match 
shall bless the other. It is a new world she enter- 
eth into, and therefore she hath need of new ac- 
quaintance with the Son of God, and of a renewing 
of her love to him whose love is better than wine. 
"The time is short, let the married be as though 
they were not married ; they that weep as though 
they wept not ; they that rejoice as though they re- 
joiced not ; they that buy as though they possessed 
not ; they that use this world as though they used 



244 A Garden of Spices. 

it not ; for the fashion of this world passeth away." 
Grace, grace be her portion from the Lord. I know 
that you have a care on you of it that all be right, 
but let Christ bear all. You need not pity him — if 
I may say so ; put him to it, he is strong enough. 

It is impossible that a man can take his lusts 
to heaven with him ; such wares as these will not 
be welcome there. O, how loth are we to forego 
our packs and burdens that hinder us to run our 
race with patience ! It is no small work to dis- 
please and anger nature that we may please God. 
O, if it be hard to win one foot or half an inch out 
of our own will, our own wit, out of our own ease 
and worldly lusts, and so to deny ourself and to say, 
" It is not I, but Christ ; not I, but grace ; not I, but 
God's glory ; not I, but God's love constraining me ; 
not I, but the Lord's Word ; not I, but Christ's 
commanding power in me!" O, what pains and 
what a death is it to nature to turn me, myself, my 
lust, my ease, my credit over unto my Lord, my 
Savior, my King, and my God, my Lord's will, my 
Lord's grace ! 

Death is the last thief, that will come without 
the least din or noise of feet and take our souls 



Warnings and Entreaties. 



HS 



away, and we shall take our leave of time and face 
eternity ; and our Lord will lay together the two 
sides of this earthly tabernacle, and fold us and lay 
us by as a man layeth by clothes at night, and put 
the one half of us in a house of clay, the dark 
grave, and the other half of us in heaven or hell. 
Seek to be found of your Lord in peace, and gather 
in your household goods and put your soul in order, 
for Christ will not give a nail-breadth of time to our 
little sand-glass. 

Sleep not sound till ye find yourself in that 
case that ye dare look death in the face, and durst 
hazard your soul upon eternity. I am sure that 
many ells and inches of the short thread of your life 
are past since I saw you: and that thread hath an 
end ; and ye have no hand to cast a knot, and add 
one day or a finger-breadth to the end of it. When 
hearing, and seeing, and the outer walls of the clay- 
house shall fall down, and life shall render the be- 
sieged castle of clay to death and judgment, and ye 
find your time worn shallow and run out, what 
thoughts will you then have of idol-pleasures that 
possibly are now sweet ? What bribe or hire would 
you then give for the Lord's favor ? and what a 
price would ye then give for pardon ? It were not 



246 A Garden of Spices. 

amiss to think, " What if I were to receive a doom, 
and to enter into a furnace of fire and brimstone? 
What if it come to this, that I shall have no portion 
but utter darkness? And what if I be brought to 
this, to be banished from the presence of God, and 
to be given over to God's sergeants, the devil, and 
the power of the second death ?" Put your soul, by 
supposition, in such a case, and consider what horror 
would take hold of you, and what ye would then 
esteem of pleasing yourself in the course of sin. 
O, dear sir, for the Lord's sake, awake to live right- 
eously, and love your poor soul ! 

O sacrilegious robber of God's day, what wilt 
thou answer the Almighty when he seeketh so 
many Sabbaths back again from thee ? What will 
the curser, swearer, and blasphemer do, when his 
tongue shall be roasted in that broad and burning 
lake of fire and brimstone ; and what will the 
drunkard do, when tongue, lungs, and liver, bones 
and all, shall boil and shall fry in a torturing fire ? 
He shall be far from his barrels of strong drink 
then, and there is not a cold well of water for him 
in hell. What shall be the case of the wretch, the 
covetous man, the oppressor, the deceiver, the earth- 
worm, who can never get his fill of clay, when, in 



Warnings and Entreaties. 247 

the day of Christ, gold and silver must lie burnt 
in ashes, and he must appear and answer his Judge, 
and quit his clayey and empty heaven ? Woe, woe, 
for evermore, be to the time-turning atheist, who 
hath one god and one religion for Summer, and 
another god and another religion for Winter, and 
the day of fanning, when Christ fanneth all that is 
in his barn-floor — who hath a conscience for every 
fair and market, and the soul of him runneth upon 
these oiled wheels, time, custom, the world, and 
command of men. O that the careless atheist and 
sleeping man, who edgeth past all with "God for- 
give our pastors if they lead us wrong, we must do 
as they command," and layeth down his head upon 
time's bosom, and giveth his conscience to a deputy, 
and sleepeth so until the smoke of hell-fire fly up in 
his throat, and cause him to start out of his doleful 
bed! O that such a man would awake! Many 
woes are for the over-gilded and gold-plastered 
hypocrite. A heavy doom is for the liar and white- 
tongued flatterer ; and the flying book of God's fear- 
ful vengeance, twenty cubits long and ten cubits 
broad, that goeth out from the face of God, shall 
enter into the house, and in upon the soul of him 
that stealeth and sweareth falsely by God's name. 
I denounce eternal burning, hotter than Sodom's 



248 A Garden of Spices. 

flames, upon the men that boil in filthy lusts of for- 
nication, adultery, incest, and the like wickedness ; 
no room, no, not a foot-broad, for such vile dogs 
within the clean Jerusalem. Many of you put off 
all with this, " God forgive us, we know no better :" 
I renew my old answer, The Judge is coming in 
flaming fire, with all his mighty angels, to render 
vengeance to all those that know not God, and 
believe not. I have often told you that security will 
slay you. All men say they have faith — as many 
men and women now, as many saints in heaven — 
and all believe — say ye — that every foul dog is clean 
enough, and good enough, for the clean and new 
Jerusalem above. Every man hath conversion and 
the new birth ; but it is not well come ; they had 
never a sick night for sin ; conversion came to 
them in a night-dream. In a word, hell will be 
empty at the day of judgment, and heaven crowded 
full. Alas! it is neither easy nor ordinary to be- 
lieve and to be saved. Many must stand, in the 
end, at heaven's gates: when they go to take out 
their faith they take out a fair nothing, or — as 
ye use to speak — an illusion. O, lamentable dis- 
appointment! I pray you, I charge you, in the 
name of Christ, make fast work of Christ and sal- 
vation. 



Warnings and Entrea ties. 249 

I know that ye are not ignorant that men come 
not to this world as some do to a market, to see 
and to be seen ; or as some come, to behold a May- 
game, and only to behold, and to go home again. 
Ye came hither to treat with God, and to negotiate 
with him in his Christ for salvation to your soul, 
and to seek reconciliation with an angry, wrathful 
God, in a covenant of peace made to you in Christ ; 
and this is more than ordinary sport, or the play, 
that the greatest part of the world give their heart 
unto. And, therefore, worthy sir, I pray you by the 
salvation of your soul, and by the mercy of God, 
and your appearing before Christ, do this in sober 
earnest, and let not salvation be your by-work, or 
your holy-day's task only, or a work by the way, for 
men think that this may be clone in three days' 
space on a feather-bed, when death and they are 
fallen in hands together, and that with a word or 
two they shall make their soul-matters right. Alas ! 
this is to sit loose and unsure in the matters of our 
salvation. Nay, the seeking of this world, and of 
the glory of it, is but an odd and by-errand that we 
may slip, so being we make salvation sure. O, 
when will men learn to be so heavenly-wise as to 
divorce from and free their soul of all idol-lovers, 
and make Christ the only, only One, and trim and 



250 A Gardex of Spices. 

make ready their lamps, while they have time and 
day ! How soon will this house perish, and the inn 
where the poor soul lodgeth fall to the earth ! How 
soon will some few years pass away ; and then, 
when the day is ended, and this life's lease expired, 
what have men of world's glory but dreams and 
thoughts? O, how blessed a thing is it to labor 
for Christ, and to make him sure ! Know and try 
in time your holding of him, and the title-deeds and 
charters of heaven, and upon what terms ye have 
Christ and the Gospel, and what Christ is worth in 
your estimation, and how lightly ye esteem other 
things, and how highly Christ ! I am sure that if 
ye see him in his beauty and glory, ye shall see him 
to be all things, and that incomparable jewel of gold 
that ye should seek, howbeit that ye should sell, 
alienate, and forfeit your few years' portion of this 
life's joys. O happy soul for evermore, who can 
rightly compare this life with that long-lasting life 
to come, and can balance the weighty glory of the 
one with the light golden vanity of the other ! 

1 must first tell you that there is not such a 
glassy, icy, and slippery piece of way betwixt you 
and heaven as youth ; and I have experience to say 
with me here, and to seal what I assert. The old 



Warnings and Entreaties. 251 

ashes of the sins of my youth are now fire of sorrow 
to me. I have seen the devil, as it were, dead and 
buried, and yet rise again, and be a worse devil than 
ever he was — therefore, my brother, beware of a 
green young devil, that hath never been buried. 
The devil in his flowers — I mean the hot, fiery lusts 
and passions of youth — is much to be feared. Better 
yoke with an old gray -haired, withered, dry devil : 
for in youth he findeth dry sticks, and dry coals, 
and a hot hearth-stone ; and how soon can he with 
his flint cast fire, and with his bellows blow it up, 
and fire the house? Sanctified thoughts, thoughts 
made conscience of, and called in, and kept in awe, 
are green fuel that burn not, and are a water for 
Satan's coal. 

I exhort you in the bowels of Christ, set to 
work for your soul, and let these bear weight with 
you, and ponder them seriously: First. Weeping 
and gnashing of teeth in utter darkness or heaven's 
joy. Secondly. Think what ye would give for an 
hour, when ye shall lie like dead, cold, blackened 
clay. Thirdly. There is sand in your glass yet, and 
your sun is not gone down. Fourthly. Consider 
what joy and peace arc in Christ's service. Fifthly. 
Think what advantage it will be to have angels, the 



252 A Garden of Spices. 

world, life and death, crosses, yea, and devils, all for 
you, as the King's sergeants and servants, to do 
your business. Sixthly. To have mercy on your 
seed, and a blessing on your house. Seventhly. To 
have true honor, and a name on earth that casteth a 
sweet smell. Eighthly. How ye will rejoice when 
Christ layeth down your head under his chin, and 
betwixt his breasts, and drieth your face, and wel- 
cometh you to glory and happiness. Ninthly. Im- 
agine what pain and torture is a guilty conscience ; 
what slavery to carry the devil's dishonest loads. 
Tenthly. Sin's joys are but night-dreams, thoughts, 
vapors, imaginations, and shadows. Eleventhly. 
What dignity it is to be a son of God. Twelfthly. 
Dominion and mastery over temptations, over the 
world and sin. Thirteenthly. That your enemies 
should be the tail and you the head. 

My earnest desire to you is that ye would, in the 
fear of God, compare your inch and handbreadth 
of time with vast eternity, and your thoughts of 
this now fair, blooming, and green world with the 
thoughts which ye will have of it when corruption 
and worms will make their houses in your eye-holes, 
and eat your flesh, and make that body dry bones. 
If ye so do, I know then that your light of this 



Warnings and Entreaties. 253 

world's vanity shall be more clear than now it is, 
and I am persuaded ye will then think that men's 
labors for this clay idol are to be laughed at. 
Therefore come near, and take a view of that 
transparent beauty that is in Christ, which would 
busy the love of ten thousand millions of worlds 
and angels, and hold them all at work. Surely, I 
am grieved that men will not spend their whole 
love upon that royal and princely Well-beloved, 
that high and lofty One, for it is cursed love that 
runneth another way than upon him. And for 
myself, if I had ten loves and ten souls, O how 
glad would I be if he would break in upon me and 
take possession of them all ! Woe, woe is me that 
he and I are so far asunder! I hope we shall be 
in one country and one house together. Truly, 
pain of love-sickness for Jesus maketh me to think 
it long, long, long to the dawning of that day. O, 
that he would cut short years, and months, and 
hours, and overleap time, that we might meet! 

I earnestly desire your salvation. Know the 
Lord and seek Christ. You have a soul that can 
not die ; seek for a lodging for your poor soul, for 
that house of clay will fall ; heaven or nothing, 
cither Christ or nothing. Use prayer in your house, 



254 A Garden of Spices. 

and set your thoughts often upon death and judg- 
ment. It is dangerous to be loose in the matter of 
your salvation. Few are saved ; men go to heaven 
in ones and twos, and the whole world lieth in sin. 
Love your enemies, and stand by the truth which I 
have taught you in all things. Fear not men, but 
let God be your fear. Your time will not be long ; 
make the seeking of Christ your daily task ; ye 
may, when ye are in the fields, speak to God. Seek 
a broken heart for sin, for without that there is no 
meeting with Christ. 

I CAN not but, upon the opportunity of a bearer, 
exhort you to resign the love of your youth to 
Christ, and in this day, while your sun is high and 
your youth serveth you, to seek the Lord and his 
face, for there is nothing out of heaven so neces- 
sary for you as Christ. And ye can not be igno- 
rant that your day will end, and that the night of 
death shall call you from the pleasures of this life ; 
and a doom given out in death standeth forever, as 
long as God liveth. Youth, ordinarily, is a post, 
and ready servant for Satan to run errands, for it is 
a nest for lust, cursing, drunkenness, blaspheming 
of God, lying, pride, and vanity. O, that there 
were such a heart in you as to fear the Lord and 



Warnings and Entreaties. 255 

to dedicate your soul and body to his service! 
When the time cometh that your eye-strings shall 
break, and your face wax pale, and legs and arms 
tremble, and your breath grow cold, and your poor 
soul look out at your prison-house of clay to be set 
at liberty, then a good conscience and your Lord's 
favor shall be worth all the world's glory. Seek it 
as your garland and crown. Grace be with you. 

The only thing that will bring sinners within a 
cast of Christ's drawing arm is that which ye write 
of, some feeling of death and sin that bringeth forth 
complaints ; and therefore, out of sense, complain 
more and be more acquainted with all the cramps, 
stitches, and soul-swoonings that trouble you. The 
more pain, and the more night-watching, and the 
more fevers the better. A soul bleeding to death 
till Christ were sent for, and cried for in all haste to 
come and stem the blood, and close up the hole in 
the wound with his own hand and balm were a very 
good disease when many are dying of a whole heart. 
We have all too little of hell-pain and terrors that 
way; nay, God send me such a hell as Christ hath 
promised to make a heaven of. Alas ! I am not 
come so far on in the way as to say in sober earn- 
est, " Lord Jesus, great and sovereign physician, 



256 A Garden of Spices. 

here is a pained patient for thee." But the thing 
that we mistake is the want of victory. We hold 
that to be the mark of one that hath no grace ; nay, 
say I, the want of fighting were a mark of no grace, 
but I shall not say the want of victory is such a 
mark. 

All that is under this vault of heaven, and be- 
twixt us and death, and on this side of sun and 
moon are but toys, night-visions, head-fancies, poor 
shadows, watery froth, godless vanities, at their 
best, and black hearts, and salt and sour miseries, 
sugared over and confected with an hour's laughter 
or two, and the conceit of riches, honor, vain, vain 
court, and lawless pleasures. Sir, if ye look both 
to the laughing side and to the weeping side of 
this world, and if ye look not only upon the skin 
and color of things, but into their inwards and the 
heart of their excellency, ye shall see that one look 
of Christ's sweet and lovely eye, one kiss of his 
fairest face is worth ten thousand worlds of such 
rotten stuff as the foolish sons of men set their 
hearts upon. O, sir, turn, turn your heart to the 
other side of things, and get it once free of these 
entanglements, to consider eternity, death, the clay 
bed, the grave, awful judgment, everlasting burning 



Warnings and Entreaties. 257 

quick in hell, where death would give as great a 
price — if there were a market wherein death might 
be bought and sold — as all the world. Consider 
heaven and glory ; but, alas ! why speak I of con- 
sidering those things which have not entered into 
the heart of man to consider? Look into those 
depths — without a bottom — of loveliness, sweetness, 
beauty, excellency, glory, goodness, grace, and mercy 
that are in Christ, and ye shall then cry down the 
whole world, and all the glory of it, even when it is 
come to the Summer bloom, and ye shall cry, "Up 
with Christ, up with Christ's Father, up with eter- 
nity of glory !" Sir, there is a great deal less sand 
in your glass than when I saw you, and your after- 
noon is nearer eventide now than it was. As a 
flood carried back to the sea, so doth the Lord's 
swift post, time, carry you and your life with wings 
to the grave. Ye eat and drink, but time standeth 
not still ; ye laugh, but your day fleeth away ; ye 
sleep, but your hours are reckoned and laid aside. 
O, how soon will time shut you out of the poor, 
and cold, and hungry inn of this life ; and then 
what will yesterday's short-born pleasures do to 
you, but be as a snow-ball melted away many years 
since, or worse, for the memory of these pleasures 
useth to fill the soul with bitterness? Time and 
17 



258 A Garden of Spices. 

experience will prove this to be true, and dying 
.men, if they could speak, would make this good. 
Lay no more on the creatures than they are able to 
carry. Lay your soul and your weights upon God. 
Make him your only, only best beloved. Your 
errand to this life is to make sure an eternity of 
glory to your soul, and to match your soul with 
Christ. Your love, if it were more than all the 
love of angels in one, is Christ's due ; other things, 
worthy in themselves, in respect of Christ are not 
worth a straw or a drink of cold water. I doubt 
not but in death ye shall see all things more dis- 
tinctly, and that then the world shall bear no more 
bulk than it is worth, and that then it shall couch 
and be contracted into nothing; and ye shall see 
Christ longer, higher, broader, and deeper than ever 
he was. O, blessed acquisition, to lose all things 
and to gain Christ! I know not what ye have if 
ye want Christ ! Alas ! how poor is your gain if 
the earth were all yours in free heritage, holding it 
of no man of clay, if Christ be not yours ! O, seek 
all aids, lay all oars in the water, put forth all your 
power, and bend all your endeavors to put away and 
part with all things, that ye may gain and enjoy 
Christ! Try and search his word, and strive to go 
a step above and beyond ordinary professors, and 



Warnings and Entreaties. 259 

resolve to sweat more and run faster than they do 
for salvation. Men's midday, cold, and wise courses 
in godliness, and their neighbor-like, cold, and wise 
pace to heaven will cause many a man to want his 
lodging at night, and to lie in the fields. I recom- 
mend Christ and his love to your seeking, and 
yourself to the tender mercy and rich grace of 
our Lord. 

The Lord hath given you much, and therefore 
he will require much of you again. Number your 
talents, and see what you have to render back ; ye 
can not be enough persuaded of the shortness of 
your time. I charge you to write to me, and in the 
fear of God to be plain with me, whether or not ye 
have made your salvation sure. I am confident, 
and hope the best, but I know that your reckonings 
with your Judge are many and deep. Sir, be not 
beguiled, neglect not your one thing, your one nec- 
essary thing, the good part that shall not be taken 
from you. Look beyond time. Things here are 
but moonshine ; they have but children's wit who 
are delighted with shadows and deluded with feath- 
ers flying in the air. Desire your children in the 
morning of their life to begin and seek the Lord, 
and to remember their Creator in the days of their 



260 A Garden of Spices. 

youth, to cleanse their way by taking- heed thereto 
according to God's Word. Youth is a glassy age. 
Satan finds a swept chamber, for the most part, in 
youth-hood, and a garnished lodging for himself and 
his train. Let the Lord have the flower of their 
age; the best sacrifice is due to him. Instruct 
them in this, that they have a soul, and that this 
life is nothing in comparison of eternity. They 
will have much need of God's conduct in this 
world to guide them past those rocks upon which 
most men split, but far more need when it cometh 
to the hour of death and their appearing before 
Christ. O, that there were such a heart in them 
to fear the name of the great and dreadful God, 
who hath laid up great things for those that love 
and fear him! I pray that God may be their 
portion. 

Take a trial of Christ. Look unto him and his 
love will so change you that ye shall be taken with 
him, and never choose to go from him. I have 
experience of his sweetness in this house of my 
pilgrimage here. My Witness who is above know- 
eth that I would not exchange my sighs and tears 
with the laughing of the fourteen prelates. There 
is nothing that will make you a Christian, indeed, 



Warnings and Entreaties. 261 

but a taste of the sweetness of Christ. "Come 
and see" will speak best to your soul. I would 
fain hope good of you. Be not discouraged at 
broken and spoiled resolutions, but to it and to it 
again. Woo about Christ till ye get your soul es- 
poused as a chaste virgin to him. Use the means 
of profiting with your conscience, pray in your 
family, and read the Word. Remember how our 
Lord's day was spent when I was among you ; it 
will be a great accusation to you before God if ye 
forget the good that was done within the walls of 
your house on the Lord's day, and if ye turn aside 
after the fashions of this world, and if ye go not in 
time to the kirk to wait on the public worship of 
God, and if ye tarry not at it till all the exercises 
of religion be ended. Give God some of your time, 
both morning, and evening, and afternoon, and in so 
doing rejoice the heart of a poor oppressed prisoner. 

I long to hear whether or not your soul be affi- 
anced to Christ. Lose your time no longer; flee 
the follies of youth, gird up the loins of your mind, 
and make you ready for meeting the Lord. I have 
often summoned you, and now I summon you 
again, to appear before your Judge to make a reck- 
oning of your life. While ye have time look upon 



262 A Garden of Spices. 

your papers and consider your ways. O that there 
were such a heart in you as to think what an ill 
conscience will be to you when ye are upon the 
border of eternity and your one foot out of time! 
O, then ten thousand thousand floods of tears can 
not extinguish these flames or purchase to you one 
hour's release from that pain! O, how sweet a 
day have ye had! But this is a fair day that run- 
neth fast away ; see how ye have spent it, and con- 
sider the necessity of salvation, and tell me, in the 
fear of God, if ye have made it sure. I am per- 
suaded that ye have a conscience that will be 
speaking somewhat to you. Why will ye die and 
destroy yourself? I charge you in Christ's name 
to rouse up your conscience and begin to indent 
and contract with Christ in time, while salvation is 
in your offer. This is the accepted time, this is 
the day of salvation. Play the merchant, for ye 
can not expect another market-day when this is 
done. Therefore let me again beseech you to con- 
sider, in this your day, the things that belong to 
your peace before they be hid from your eyes. 
Dear brother, fulfill my joy, and begin to seek the 
Lord while he may be found ; forsake the follies 
of deceiving and vain youth ; lay hold upon eter- 
nal life. 



Warnings and Entreaties. 263 



Knocking at the Boor. 



In the silent midnight watches 

List thy bosom's door, 
How it knocketh, knocketh, knocketh, 

Knocketh evermore ! 
Say not 't is thy pulse's beating, 

'T is thy heart of sin; 
'T is thy Savior knocks, and crieth, 

"Rise and let me in!" 

Death comes down with reckless footsteps 

To the hall and hut; 
Think you death will tarry knocking 

When the door is shut? 
Jesus waiteth, waiteth, waiteth, 

But the door is fast; 
Grieved, away thy Savior goeth, 

Death breaks in at last. 

Then 't is thine to stand entreating 

Christ to let thee in, 
At the gate of heaven beating, 

Wailing for thy sin ! 
Nay, alas ! thou guilty creature, 

Hast thou then forgot? 
Jesus waited long to know thee, 

Now he knows thee not. 



XV. 



tsum. 




REJOICE in the hope of that glory to be 
revealed ; for it is no uncertain glory which 
we look for. Our hope is not hung upon 
such an untwisted thread as, " I imagine ;" or, " It is 
likely;" but the cable, the strong hawser of our 
fastened anchor, is the oath and promise of Him 
who is eternal verity. Our salvation is fastened with 
God's own hand, and with Christ's own strength, to 
the strong stake of God's unchangeable nature. 

O sweet stability of sure-bottomed salvation! 
Who could attain to heaven if this were not so? 
And who could be saved, if God were not God, 
and if he were not such a God as he is ? O God be 
thanked that our salvation is coasted, and landed 



The Heavenly Vision. 265 

and stowed upon Christ, who is Master of winds 
and storms ! And what sea-winds can blow the 
coast of the land out of its place ? Bulwarks are 
often cast down, but coasts are not removed: but 
suppose that were, or might be, God can not reel 
nor remove. 

It is a broad river that faith will not look over : 
it is a mighty and a broad sea that they of a lively 
hope can not behold the furthest bank and other 
shore thereof. Look over the water : your anchor 
is fixed within the vail : the one end of the cable is 
about the prisoner of Christ, and the other is entered 
within the vail, whither the Forerunner is entered 
for you. It can go straight through the flames 
of the fire of the wrath of men, devils, horses, tor- 
ture, death, and not a thread of it be singed or 
burnt. Men and devils have no teeth to bite it 
in two. 

Death is but an awsome step over time and sin 
to sweet Jesus Christ, who knew and felt the worst 
of death — for death's teeth hurt him. We know 
death hath no teeth now, no jaws, for they are 
broken. It is a free prison ; citizens pay nothing for 
the grave : the jailer, who had the power of death, is 



266 A Garden of Spices. 

destroyed — praise and glory be to the First-begotten 
of the dead. 

You may rejoice that you will not get to heaven 
till you know that Jesus is there before you: that 
when you come thither, at your first entry, you may 
feel the smell of his ointments, his myrrh, aloes, and 
cassia. And this first salutation of his will make 
you find it is no uncomfortable thing to die. 

No son is offended that his father give him not 
line twice a year; for he is to abide in the house, 
when the inheritance is to be divided. It is better 
that God's children live upon hope than upon hire. 

If it were no more than once to see the face of 
the Prince of this good land, and to be feasted for 
eternity with the fatness, sweetness, dainties of the 
rays and beams of matchless glory, and incompar- 
able fountain-love, it were a well-spent journey to 
creep hands and feet through seven deaths and 
seven hells, to enjoy him up at the well-head. Only 
let us not weary — the miles to that land are fewer 
and shorter than when we first believed. Strangers 
are not wise to quarrel with their host, and com- 
plain of their lodging. It is a foul way, but a fair 
home. 



The Heavenly Vision. 267 

It hath seemed good to Him to gather in a sheaf 
of ripe corn, in the death of your Christian mother, 
into his garner. It is the more evident that Winter 
is near, when apples, without violence of wind, fall 
of their own accord off the tree. She is now above 
the Winter, with a little change of place, not of a 
Savior: only she now enjoyeth him without mes- 
sages, and in his own immediate presence. I grant 
that death is to her a very new thing ; but heaven 
was prepared of old ; and Christ — as enjoyed in his 
highest throne, and as loaded with glory, and in- 
comparably exalted above men and angels, having 
such a heavenly circle of glorified harpers and mu- 
sicians above, compassing the throne with a song — 
is to her a new thing ; but so new as the first 
Summer-rose, or the first-fruits of that heavenly 
field ; or as a new paradise to a traveler broken and 
worn out of breath with the sad occurrences of a 
long and dirty way. 

Certainly the sweetest and safest course is, 
for this short time of the afternoon of this old and 
declining world, to stand for Jesus: he hath said it, 
and it is our part to believe it, that it, ere it be long, 
"Time shall be no more, and the heaven shall wax 
old as doth a garment." Do we not see it already 



268 A Garden of Spices. 

an old and threadbare garment, full of holes ? Doth 
not halting and lame nature tell us that the Lord 
will fold up the old garment and lay it aside ; and 
that the heavens shall be folded together as a scroll, 
and this pest-house shall be burnt with fire, and that 
both furniture and walls shall melt with fervent heat ? 
For at the Lord's coming he will do with this earth 
as men do with a lazaretto, he will burn the walls 
with fire, and the furniture of the house also. 

The day is near the dawning ; the sky is rising ; 
our Beloved will be on us ere ever we be aware. 
The Antichrist, and death, and hell, and Christ's 
enemies and ours, shall be bound, and cast into the 
bottomless pit. 

In the mean time the least imitation of Christ's 
love is sweet, and the hope of marriage with the 
Bridegroom holdeth me in some joyful on-waiting, 
that when Christ's Summer-birds shall sing upon 
the branches of the tree of life, I shall be tuned by 
God himself to help them to sing the home-coming 
of our Well-beloved and his bride to their house to- 
gether. When I think of this, I think Winters and 
Summers, and years and days, and time, do me a 
pleasure, that they shorten this untwisted and weak 



The Heavenly Vision. 269 

thread of my life, and that they put sin and miseries 
quickly aside, and that they shall carry me to my 
Bridegroom in a clap. 

We have gotten the new heavens, and as a 
pledge of that the Bridegroom's love-ring. The 
children of the wedding-chamber have cause to skip 
and leap for joy ; for the marriage-supper is draw- 
ing nigh, and we find the slight repast sweet and 
comfortable. O time, be not slow! O sun, move 
speedily, and hasten our banquet ! O Bridegroom, 
be like a roe, or a young hart on the mountains ! 
O Well-beloved, move fast, that we may once meet ! 

What would I not give to have time, that lieth 
betwixt Christ and me, taken out of the way, that 
we might once meet ? I can not think but that, at 
the first sight I shall see of that most lovely and 
fairest face, love will come out of his two eyes, and 
fill me with astonishment. I would but desire to 
stand at the outer side of the gates of the New 
Jerusalem, and look through a hole of the door and 
see Christ's face. A borrowed vision in this life 
would be my borrowed and begun heaven, till the 
long, long-looked-for day dawn. All that we have 
here is scarce the picture of glory. It were good to 



270 A Garden of Spices. 

be daily begging presents and love-gifts, and the 
Bridegroom's favors ; and, if we can do no more, to 
seek crumbs and hungry dinners of Christ's love, to 
keep the taste of heaven in our mouth until supper- 
time. O, Well-beloved, run, run fast! O fair day, 
when wilt thou dawn ! O shadows, flee away ! It 
is a pain to wait on, but hope, that maketh not 
ashamed, swalloweth up that pain. 

It is a dear Summer with me ; yet there is much 
joy in the eagerness and working of hunger for 
Christ, that I am often at this, that if I had no other 
heaven than a continual hunger for Christ, such a 
heaven, of ever-working hunger, were still a heaven 
to me. 

I dare not accuse himself — Christ — but his ab- 
sence is a mountain of iron upon my heavy heart. 
O when shall we meet? O how long is it to the 
dawning of the marriage-day ! O sweet Lord Jesus, 
take long steps. O, my Lord, come over mountains 
at one stride. O, my Beloved, flee like a roe, or a 
young hart upon the mountains of separation ! O 
that he would fold the heavens together like an old 
cloak, and shovel time and days out of the way, and 
make ready in haste the Lamb's wife for her Hus- 



The Heavenly Vision. 271 

band ! Since he looked upon me my heart is not 
my own, he hath run away to heaven with it. 

Alas ! I can not cause paper to speak the hight, 
and breadth, and depth of Christ's love ! I have not 
a balance to weigh the worth of my Lord Jesus. 
Heaven, ten heavens, would not be the beam of a 
balance to weigh him in. I must give over praising 
him. Angels see but little of him. O that that 
fair one would take the mask off his fair face, that 
I might see him — a kiss of him through his mask 
is half a heaven. O day, dawn ! O time, run fast ! 
O Bridegroom, post, post fast, that we may meet! 
O heavens, cleave in two, that that bright face and 
head may set itself through the clouds! O that 
the corn were ripe, and this world prepared for his 
sickle ! 

Some travelers see the city twenty miles off, and 
at a distance ; and yet, within the eighth part of a 
mile, they can not see it. It is all keeping that you 
would now have, till you need it ; and if sense and 
fruition come both at once it is not your loss. Let 
Christ tutor you as he thinketh good ; you can not 
be marred nor miscarry in his hand. Some see the 
gold once, and never again till the races end — it is 



272 A Garden of Spices. 

coming all in a sum together — when you are in a 
more gracious capacity to tell it than now. You 
are not come to the mount, etc. Heb. xii, 18-24. 

What do we here but sin and suffer? O, when 
shall the nights be gone, the shadows flee away, and 
the morning of that long, long day, without cloud 
or night, dawn ! The Spirit and the bride say, 
"Come." O, when shall the Lamb's wife be ready, 
and the Bridegroom say, "Come?" 

O cruel time, that tormenteth us, and sus- 
pendeth our dearest enjoyments that we wait for, 
when we shall be bathed and steeped, soul and body, 
down in the depths of this love of loves ! O time, 
I say, run fast ! O motions, mend your pace ! O 
Well-beloved, be like a young roe on the mountains 
of separation ! Post, post, and hasten our desired 
and hungered-for meeting — love is sick to hear tell 
of to-morrow. 

It is my happiness to look afar off, and to come 
near to the Lord's back parts, and to light my dark 
candle at his brightness, and to have leave to sit 
and content myself with a traveler's light, without 
the clear vision of an enjoyer. I would seek no 
more till I were in my country than a little watering 



The Heavenly Vision. 273 

and sprinkling of a withered soul, with some half 
outbreakings and half outlooking of the beams 
and small ravishing smiles of the fairest face of a 
revealed and believed-on Godhead. A little of God 
would make my soul full from bank to bank! O, 
that I had but Christ's odd off-fallings, that he 
would let the meanest of his love-rays and love- 
beams fall from him, so as I might gather and carry 
them with me ! O, that I had any thing of Christ ! 
O, that I had a sip or half a drop out of Christ's 
hand of the sweetness and excellency of that lovely 
One ! O, that my Lord Jesus would rue upon me 
and give me but the meanest alms of felt and be- 
lieved salvation! O, how little were it for that 
infinite Fountain of love and joy to fill as many 
thousand thousands of little vessels the like of me 
as there are minutes of hours since the creation 
of God ! 

I find when he but sendeth his hearty com- 
mendations to me, and bloweth a kiss afar off, I 
am confounded with wondering what the supper of 
the Lamb will be up in our Father's dining-palace 
of glory, since the short refreshment in this dismal 
wilderness, and when in prisons, and in our sad 
days a kiss of Christ are so comfortable. O, how 
18 



274 A Garden of Spices. 

sweet and glorious shall our case be when that 
fairest among the sons of men will lay his fair face 
to our now sinful faces and wipe away all tears 
from our eyes! O, time, time, run swiftly, and 
hasten this day ! O, sweet Lord Jesus, come fly- 
ing like a roe or a young hart! Alas! that we, 
blind fools, are fallen in love with moonshine and 
shadows ! How sweet is the wind that bloweth 
out of the quarter where Christ is ! Every day we 
may see some new thing in Christ ; his love hath 
neither brim nor bottom. 

Christ is unmixed in heaven, all sweetness and 
honey. Here we have him with his thorny and 
rough cross, yet I know no tree that beareth 
sweeter fruit than Christ's cross, except I would 
raise a lying report on it. It is your part to take 
Christ as he is to be had in this life. Sufferings 
are like a wood planted round about his house, over 
door and window. If we could hold fast our gripe 
of him the field were won. Yet a little while and 
Christ shall triumph. 

Till we be in heaven the best have heavy 
heads. Nature is a sluggard, and loveth not the 
labor of religion ; therefore rest should not be taken 



The Heavenly Vision. 275 

till we know that the disease is over and in the 
way of turning, and that it is like a fever past the 
cool, and the quietness and the calms of the faith 
of victory over corruption should be entertained in 
the place of security, so that if I sleep I should 
desire to sleep faith's sleep in Christ's bosom. 

If the heart be in heaven, the remnant of you 
can not be kept the prisoner of the second death. 
But though he is the same Christ in the other life 
that you found him to be here, yet he is so far in 
his excellency, beauty, sweetness, irradiations, and 
beams of majesty above what he appeared here, 
when he is seen as he is, that you shall not recog- 
nize him, and he shall appear a new Christ ; and 
his kisses, breathings, embracements, the perfumes, 
the ointment of his name poured out on you shall 
appear to have more of God, and a stronger smell 
of heaven, of eternity, of a Godhead, of majesty, 
and glory there than here, as water at the fountain, 
apples in the orchard and beside the tree have 
more of their native sweetness, taste, and beauty 
than when transported to us some hundred miles. 
I mean not that Christ can lose any of his sweet- 
ness in the carrying, or that he, in his Godhead 
and loveliness of presence, can be changed to the 



276 A Garden of Spices. 

worse betwixt the little spot of the earth that you 
are in and the right hand of the Father, far above 
all heavens ; but the change will be in you, when 
you shall have new senses, and the soul shall be a 
more deep and more capacious vessel, to take in 
more of Christ, and when means, the chariot, the 
Gospel that he is now carried in and ordinances 
that convey him shall be removed. Sure, you can 
not now be said to see him face to face, or to 
drink of the wine of the highest fountain, or to 
take in seas and tides of fresh love immediately, 
without vessels, mediums, or messengers, at the 
Fountain itself, as you will do a few days hence, 
when you shall be so near as to be with Christ. 

If you knew what he is preparing for you you 
would be too glad. He will not, it may be, give 
you a full draught till you come up to the well-head 
and drink, yea, drink abundantly of "the pure river 
of the water of life that proceedeth out from the 
throne of God and from the Lamb." I dare find 
you the Son of God surety that when you have got 
up thither, and have cast your eyes to view the 
golden city and the fair and never-withering "tree 
of life, which beareth twelve manner of fruits every 
month," you will then say, " Four and twenty hours' 



The Heavenly Vision. 277 

abode in that place is worth threescore and ten 
years' sorrow upon earth." 

Take Christ's security you shall not lose your 
reward. Hold your gripe fast. If you knew the 
mind of the glorified in heaven — they think heaven 
came to their hand at an easy market when they 
have got it for threescore or fourscore years' wres- 
tling with God. When you are come thither you 
shall think that all which I did in respect of my 
rich reward, now enjoyed of free grace, was too 
little. Take as many with you to heaven as you 
are able to draw ; the more you draw with you, you 
shall be the welcomer yourself. 

I wish that our thoughts were more frequently 
upon our country. O, but heaven casteth a sweet 
smell afar off to those who have spiritual smelling! 
God hath made many fair flowers, but the fairest 
of them all is heaven, and the flower of all flowers 
is Christ. 

When we shall come home and enter to the 
possession of our Brother's fair kingdom, and our 
heads shall find the weight of the eternal crown of 
glory, and when we shall look back to pains and 



27S A Garden of Spices. 

sufferings, then shall we see life and sorrow to be 
less than one step or stride from a prison to glory, 
and that our little inch of time-suffering is not 
worthy of our first night's welcome home to heaven. 

Faint not ; the miles to heaven are few and 
short. There are many heads lying in Christ's 
bosom, but there is room for yours among the rest. 

There is a great necessity of heaven ; you must 
needs have it ; all other things, as houses, land, 
children, husband, friends, country, kindred, health, 
wealth, honor, may be wanted, but heaven is your 
one thing necessary, the good part that shall not be 
taken from you. See that you buy the field where 
the pearl is. Sell all and make a purchase of sal- 
vation. Think it not easy, for it is a steep ascent 
to eternal glory ; many are lying dead by the way 
that are slain with security. 

Set your heart on the inheritance. Go up be- 
forehand and see your lodging. Look through all 
your Father's rooms in heaven ; in your Father's 
house are many dwelling-places. Men take a view 
of lands ere they buy them. I know that Christ 
hath made the bargain already, but be kind to the 



The Heavenly Vision. 279 

house you are going to, and see it often. Set your 
heart on things that are above, where Christ is at 
the right hand of God. 

Happy are they who are found watching. Our 
sand-glass is not so long as we need to weary. 
Time will eat away and root out our woes and sor- 
row. Our heaven is in the bud and growing up 
to a harvest. Why, then, should we not follow on, 
seeing our span-length of time will come to an inch ? 

I accuse time as too slow in its pace that hold- 
eth my only, only fair One, my Love, my Well- 
beloved from me. O, that we were together once! 
I am like an old crazed ship that hath endured 
many storms, and fain would be in the lee of the 
shore, and feareth new storms. I would be so nigh 
heaven that the shadow of it might break the force 
of the storm, and the crazed ship might get to 
land. My blessing thrice every day upon the cross 
of Christ. 

We shall be together one day. We shall not 
need to borrow light from sun, moon, or candle. 
There shall be no complaints on either side in 
heaven. There shall be none there but him and us, 



280 A Garden of Spices. 

the Bridegroom and the bride ; devils, temptations, 
trials, desertions, loves, sad hearts, pain, and death 
shall be all put out of play, and the devil must give 
up his office of tempting. O, blessed is the soul 
whose hope hath a face looking straight out to that 
clay! It is not our part to make a treasure here; 
any thing under the covering of heaven which we 
can build upon is but ill ground and a sandy foun- 
dation. Every good thing except God wanteth a 
bottom and can not stand alone. 

A King from heaven hath sent for you ; by faith 
he sheweth you the New Jerusalem, and taketh you 
along in the Spirit through all the rooms for repose 
and dwelling-houses in heaven, and saith, "All these 
are thine ; this palace is* for thee and Christ ;" and, 
if you only had been the chosen of God, Christ 
would have built that one house for you and him- 
self; now it is for you and many others also. Take 
with you in your journey what you may carry with 
you, your conscience, faith, love, patience, meek- 
ness, goodness, brotherly kindness, for such wares 
as these are of great price in the high and new 
country whither you go. As for other things, which 
are but the world's vanity and trash, since they are 
but the house-sweepings, you will do best not to 



The Heavenly Vision. 2S1 

carry them with you. You found them here, leave 
them here and let them keep the house. 

You know when one day in heaven hath paid 
you, yea, and overpaid your blood, bonds, sorrow, 
and sufferings that it would trouble angels' under- 
standing to state the count of that surplus of glory 
which eternity can and will give you. O, but your 
hour-glass of sufferings and losses cometh to little 
when it shall be counted and compared with the 
glory that abideth you on the other side of the 
water! You have no leisure to rejoice and sing 
here, while time goeth about you, and where your 
psalms will be short ; therefore you will think eter- 
nity and the long day of heaven, that shall be meas- 
ured with no other sun nor horologe than the long 
life of the Ancient of Days, to measure your praises, 
little enough for you.* 

*This was written to Rev. Dr. Leighton, a Presbyterian, who, 
for writing a book entitled Zion's Plea against Prelacy, was sen- 
tenced, in 1630, to imprisonment during life, to pay a fine of ,£10,000, 
to be publicly whipped at Westminster, to have one of his ears cut 
off, one side of his nose slitted, and to be branded with a burning 
iron on one cheek with S. S. as a sower of sedition, and on another 
clay to be again publicly whipped and pilloried at Chcapside, to have 
his other ear cut off, his other nostril slitted up, and his other cheek 
branded with S. S. On November 16, 1630, Dr. L. underwent half 
of this fiendish sentence, and on that day week, the sores on his 



2S2 A Garden of Spices. 

Jesus, that flower of Jesse, set without hands, 
getteth many a blast, and yet withereth not, because 
he is the Father's noble Rose, casting a sweet smell 
through heaven and earth, and must grow ; and in 
the same garden with him grow the saints, God's 
fair and beautiful lilies, under wind and rain, and 
all sunburned, and yet life remaineth at the root. 
Keep within the garden and you shall grow with 
them, till the great Husbandman, our dear Master- 
gardener come, and transplant you from the lower 
part of his vineyard up to the higher, to the very 
heart of his garden, above the wrongs of the rain, 
sun, or wind, and then wait upon the times of the 
blowing of the sweet south and north wind of his 
gracious Spirit, that may make you cast a sweet 
smell in your Beloved's nostrils ; and let your Be- 
loved come down to his garden and eat of his 
pleasant fruits. And he will come. You will get 
no more than this until you come up to the Well- 
head, where you shall put up your hand and take 

back, head, and face being yet unhealed, he was mercilessly whipped 
at Cheapside by the hangman, who had previously been purposely 
intoxicated, was exposed in the pillory for nearly two hours in a hard 
frost and a fall of snow, had his other ear cut off, and his other nos- 
tril slitted up and his other cheek branded, and afterward, being 
unable to walk, was carried to the Fleet prison, in which he lay till 
liberated by the Long Parliament. 



The Heavenly Vision. 283 

down the apples of the Tree of life, and eat under 
the shadow of that Tree. Those apples are sweeter 
up beside the Tree than they are down here in this 
piece of a clay-prison house. I have no joy but in 
the thoughts of these times. 

Violent death is a sharer of Christ in his death, 
which was violent. It maketh not much what way 
we go to heaven — the happy home is all, where the 
roughest of the way shall be forgotten. God's order 
is in wisdom. The husband goeth home before the 
wife, and the throng of the market shall be over 
ere it be long, and another generation where we 
now are ; and at length an empty house, and not 
one of mankind shall be upon the earth, within the 
sixth part of an hour after the earth and the works 
that are therein shall be burnt up with fire. I fear 
more that Christ is about to remove, when he car- 
rieth home so much of his furniture beforehand. 

Better have Christ your factor than any other ; 
for he tradeth to the advantage of his poor servants. 
But if the hundred-fold in this life be so well-told — 
as Christ can not pay you with miscounting, or de- 
ferred hope — O, what must the rent of that land be, 
which rendereth every day and hour of the years of 



2S4 A Garden of Spices. 

long eternity the whole rent of a year, yea, of more 
than thousand thousands ages, even the weighty 
income of a rich kingdom, not every Summer once, 
but every moment. That sum of glory will take 
you and all the angels to tell. To be a tenant to 
such a Landlord, where every berry and grape of 
the large field beareth no more fruit than glory, full- 
ness of joy, and pleasures that endure for evermore ! 
I leave to yourself to think what a Summer, what a 
soil, what a garden must be there ; and what must 
be the commodities of that highest land, where the 
sun and the moon are under the feet of the inhabit- 
ants ! Surely the land can not be bought with 
gold, blood, banishment, loss of father, husband, 
wife, children. 

We are not to stay here, and we shall be dearly 
welcome to Him whom we go to. And I hope that 
when I shall see you clothed in white raiment, 
washed in the blood of the Lamb, and shall see 
you even at the elbow of your dearest Lord and 
Redeemer, and a crown upon your head, and follow- 
ing our Lamb and lovely Lord whithersoever he 
goeth, you will think nothing of all these days, and 
you will then rejoice, and your joy no man taketh 
from you. And it is certain that there is not much 



The Heavenly Vision. 285 

sand to run in your Lord's sand-glass, and that day 
is at hand, and, till then, your Lord in this life is 
giving you some little feasts. It is true that you 
see him not now as you will see him then. Your 
Well-beloved standeth now behind the wall, looking 
out at the window, and you see but little of his 
face — then you shall see his face and all the Sav- 
ior — a long, and high, and broad Lord Jesus — the 
most lovely person among the children of men. O 
joy of joys ! that our souls know there is such a 
great supper preparing for us. 

The King's spikenard, Christ's perfumes, his 
apples of love, his ointments, even down in this 
lower house of clay, are a choice heaven. O what, 
then, is the King in his own land ? Where there is 
such a throne, so many kings' palaces, ten thousand 
thousands of crowns of glory, that want heads yet 
to fill them ! O so much leisure as shall be there 
to sing! O such a Tree as groweth there in the 
midst of that Paradise, where the inhabitants sing 
eternally under its branches ! To look in at a 
window, and see the branches burdened with the 
apples of life — to be the last man that shall come 
in thither, were too much for me. 



286 A Garden of Spices. 



The Blessed Gauntry. 



For thee, O dear, dear Country, 

Mine eyes their vigils keep; 
For very love, beholding 

Thy happy name, they weep : 
The mention of thy glory 

Is unction to the breast, 
And medicine in sickness, 

And love, and life, and rest. 

They stand, those halls of Zion, 

Conjubilant with song, 
And bright with many an angel, 

And all the martyr throng : 
The Prince is ever in them, 

The light is aye serene, 
The pastures of the blessed 

Are decked in glorious sheen. 

There is the throne of David, 

And there, from toil released, 
The shout of them that triumph, 

The song of them that feast ; 
And who, beneath their Leader, 

Have conquered in the fight, 
Forever and forever 

Are clad in robes of white. 



The Heavenly Vision. 287 



Thoughts of Home; 



I 've been thinking of home, of "my Father's house, 

Where the many mansions be," 
Of the city whose streets are paved with gold, 
Of its jasper walls, so fair to behold, 

Which the righteous alone shall see. 

I 've been thinking of home, where they need not the light 

Of the sun, nor moon, nor star; 
Where the gates of pearl "are not shut by day, 
For no night is there," but the weary may 

Find rest from the world afar. 

I 've been thinking of home, of the river of life 

That flows through the city so pure; 
Of the tree that stands by the side of the stream, 
Whose leaves in mercy with blessings teem, 

The sin-wounded soul to cure. 

I 've been thinking of home, of the loved ones there, 

Dear friends who have gone before, 
With whom we walked to the death river side, 
And sadly thought, as we watched the tide, 

Of the happy days of yore. 



288 A Garden of spices. 

I 've been thinking of home, and my heart is full 

Of love for the Lamb of God, 
Who his precious life as a ransom gave 
For a simple race, e'en our souls to save 

From justice's avenging rod. 

I 've been thinking of home, and I 'm homesick now; 

My spirit doth long to be 
In "the better land," where the ransomed sing 
Of the love of Christ, their Redeemer, King, 

Of mercy so costly, so free. 

I 've been thinking of home, yea, "home, sweet home; 

O, there may we all unite 
With the white-robed throng, and forever raise 
To the triune God sweetest songs of praise, 

With glory, and honor, and might! 



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